LIVING MATTER AND BIOSPHEROLOGY CONCEPTS OF V.I. VERNADSKY

Abstract

The article takes us back to the origins of the living matter idea that resulted in basis of V.I. Vernadsky theory of living matter. Also, the article deals with appearance of biospherology as a scientific branch, formed in the late 20th century and developed ideas of V.V. Dokuchaev and V.I. Vernadsky. The article provides an in-depth analysis of research papers, letters and documents by Vernadsky and his contemporaries, as well as his followers N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky, A.N. Tyuryukanov and others, worked in a range of disciplines from theory of evolution, microbiology and genetics to soil science, radiobiology, biochemistry and biogeocenology. They further developed Vernadsky’s ideas and formulated the global problem called Biosphere and Humankind. The author raises relevant issues of the theory of living matter current significance and suggests answers on some of them based on Vernadsky’s works. For the first time, the article sheds some light on one of the most fascinating pages in the history of science in the late 20th century including heated scientific and philosophical debates about how the newly emerging field of the Earth biosphere study should be called. The author of the paper suggested calling it biospherology, in a paper pubished in 1980.