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The first edition of Evolution as Entropy
sparked a lively debate in journals of biology, physical
sciences, philosophy, anthropology, and even creationism
over whether the book pointed the way toward a unification
of basic biology with basic physics.
In this extensively rewritten second edition,
the authors refine their model for a unified theory of biology,
answer their critics, incorporate new ideas, and provide
additional illustrations and almost one hundred new references.
They take note of recent advances in research that have
clarified the relationship of information theory, physical
information systems, and entropy, contending that these
advances, coupled with a better understanding of the causal
relationships between information flow and energy flow in
organisms, have in turn clarified the relation between the
two domains of the second law of thermodynamics.
The second edition includes the presentation
of "Hierarchical Information Theory" and an integration
of three new areas into the core hypothesis: origin of life,
temporal and spatial scaling effects, and the relationship
between the genealogical and ecological hierarchies. It
also includes new studies on the detection and characterization
of developmental constraints in evolution, a new discussion
of the paleontological evidence for increasing biotic complexity
over long periods of time, and discussions of the macroscopic
properties of ecosystems and of historical ecology.
Daniel R. Brooks is associate professor
of zoology at the University of Toronto. E.O. Wiley is professor
in the Department of Systematics and Ecology and curator
at the Museum of Natural History at the University of Kansas.
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