Biosphere evolution: biogenesis and noogenesis

The noosphere («noos» – mind) is the stage of the biosphere in which human mind and activity play the main role. The word was proposed by Édouard Le Roy and the idea developed by Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin. Humans differ from other organisms by consciousness, thought and speech, so they created cultivated plant varieties and domestic animal breeds, forms that cannot exist independently in nature. At first the human was a simple food-gathering species; the use of fire, farming and herding, and then the industrial revolution and the fossil-fuel age sharply increased its influence, so the biosphere is turning into an anthropobiosphere. Damage to ecosystems, loss of species, pollution and climate change have led to a global crisis. Noogenics is the science that aims to keep the balance between humans and nature and prevent negative consequences; it protects nature and also helps to create new varieties, breeds and strains. The textbook dates noogenesis from about 50 thousand years ago; current science gives our species (Homo sapiens) a history of about 300 thousand years, and human influence has accelerated especially in the last 200 years. Some scientists call this time the «Anthropocene», but it is not an official geological epoch.