Chaos and Life: Complexity and Order in Evolution and Thought FROM THE PUBLISHER
Evolutionary biology rests on the assumption that although events are fundamentally random, some are selected because they are better adapted than others to the surrounding world. This book proposes an alternative view of evolving complexity. Bird argues that randomness means not disorder but infinite order. Complexity arises not from many random events of natural selection (although these are not unimportant) but from the "playing out" of chaotic systems - which are best described mathematically. When we properly understand the complex interplay of chaos and life, Bird contends, we will see that many events that appear random are actually the outcome of order.
SYNOPSIS
Bird (a former president of the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and Life Sciences) argues that iterative complexity gives rise to order and applies this understanding to the emergence of order in biology. He rejects the "atomism" of Darwinian understandings of evolution comparing fractal and other mathematical theories to examinations of morphologies of plants and animals. All of biology, he suggests, should be seen as a case in which the "most complex formulas are those computed by biological organisms, the living geometrical embodiment of functions that could not have been produced in any other way." Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Bird (senior lecturer, Northumbria Univ.; president, Soc. for Chaos Theory in Psychology and Life Sciences) makes a sincere but seriously flawed attempt at a unified explanation of the diversity of organic forms through chaos theory and fractals. He wishes to replace what he calls a "random selection" worldview with an "iterative-sequential" one, in which living forms are derived from repetitions of simple mathematical formulas contained in the repetitive sequences of their DNA. Bird stumbles at the beginning with a critique of Darwinian theory that is fraught with numerous factual errors as well as a basic misunderstanding of its precepts. For example, his repeated characterization of Darwinian evolution as proceeding by the random accumulation of chance genetic events is a caricature of even the most reductive line of neo-Darwinian thought. Bird obviously enjoys making connections among all levels of life experience, and the book finishes on quite a lyrical note. However, the overall symphony is discordant. This is an optional choice for libraries building a collection of divergent worldviews. Other libraries might consider John Holland's Emergence: From Chaos to Order, a core contribution title to the field that is based on solid research by a gifted scientist.-Walter L. Cressler, West Chester Univ. Lib., PA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
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