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Stuart Kauffman here presents a brilliant
new paradigm for evolutionary biology, one that extends
the basic concepts of Darwinian evolution to accommodate
recent findings and perspectives from the fields of biology,
physics, mathematics and chemistry. The book drives to the
heart of the exciting debate on the origins of life and
maintenance of order in complex biological systems. It focuses
on the concept of self-organization: the spontaneous emergence
of order widely observed throughout nature. Kauffman here
argues that self-organization plays an important role in
the emergence of life itself and may play as fundamental
a role in shaping life's subsequent evolution as does the
Darwinian process of natural selection. Yet until now no
systematic effort has been made to incorporate the concept
of self-organization into evolutionary theory. The construction
requirements which permit complex systems to adapt remain
poorly understood, as is the extent to which selection itself
can yield systems able to adapt more successfully. This
book explores these themes. It shows how complex systems,
contrary to expectations, can spontaneously exhibit stunning
degrees of order, and how this order, in turn, is essential
for understanding the emergence and development of life
on Earth. Topics include the new biotechnology of applied
molecular evolution, with its important implications for
developing new drugs and vaccines; the balance between order
and chaos observed in many naturally occurring systems;
new insights concerning the predictive power of statistical
mechanics in biology; and other major issues. Indeed, the
approaches investigated here may prove to be the new center
around which biological science itself will evolve. The
work is written for all those interested in the cutting
edge of research in the life sciences.
Stuart A. Kauffman,M.D., is Professor
of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the School of Medicine,
University of Pennsylvania, and External Professor at the
Santa Fe Institute. Professor Kauffman was awarded a John
D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship in 1987.
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