The works of Vladimir Vernadsky (1863-1945) became actually normative
in Russian literature and they are often cited only to confirm one or
other point of view, sometimes essentially different. Despite Vernadsk
y's claim that he tries to be independent of philosophy, he as every s
cientist is not free of some hidden beliefs. Accepting one mode of rea
soning, e.g. the line of Goethe and A. Humboldt, he can't admit anothe
r, e.g. that emphasizing the meaning of stochasticity. On author's opi
nion Vernadsky despite all his respect for Darwin and Wallace consider
ed the theory of natural selection simply as general evolutionary theo
ry and didn't appreciate the population thinking which is the core of
the concept. Vernadsky underestimates he variety of spatial scales in
which real organisms are living. The image of Biosphere given by Verna
dsky possesses some features of organism s. str., e.g. wholeness, dete
rministic development and functional organization. The model of Gaia p
roposed by James Lovelock fifty years later in some respects resembles
the concept of Vernadsky but certainly there are some differences bec
ause of new knowledge accumulated in this period.