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Title: The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution by Stuart A. Kauffman, Kaufman ISBN: 0-19-507951-5 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: May, 1993 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $49.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.62 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The science book to read. Six stars at least.
Comment: Stuart Kauffman has an MD and is a generalist. The book deals primarily with theory and understanding of computer simulations of state driven systems of large numbers of connected nodes. It examines how such systems evolve through mutation and gives a clear understanding of the limited role of natural selection in comparison to the self-organizing forces at work within such systems. It examines the meta-interaction of sub-systems of interacting states (attractor basins) that occur within a system. In English: it gives the first theoretical framework for understanding just how it is that cells which all contain identical DNA express themselves as some number of stable cell types. Normally a cell will react to a perturbation in whatever way will return it to its base stable cycle (attractor loop). One type of cell turns into another type when just the right perturbation kicks the system from one attractor basin into a different attractor basin.
This is heavier reading than his popular science book, At Home in the Universe, but preferable for anyone with the necessary tiny amount of knowledge of genetics and logic operations. There are few equations of any kind. The results apply to more than just biological systems.
The book is long because instead of just presenting a few principles that you can try to remember abstractly, he leads you through all the important steps of his research and gives you a real feel for how complex systems actually evolve and operate. The book raises more questions than it answers, as it should be for a book of such originality and importance.
When you fully grok the contents of this book you'll be so excited you'll want to rush and explain it to someone else, which will be utterly impossible, so you'll probably have to lend them your book, buy them the popular version, or face the fact that you are now relatively alone on a higher plane.
Rating: 5
Summary: New paradigm shift in biology
Comment: The Origins of Order will be viewed in the future as a milestone in shifting the existing Darwinian paradigm in biology from a "survival of the fittest" (natural selection) to a new paradigm focused on explaining the "arrival of the fittest" through self-organisation.
Using a boolean (NK) network model and a extensive amount of biological facts, Stuart Kauffman demonstrates in a powerful
way the central role of self-organisation in the creative process of life. His vision that biology seems to operate
as self-organised non-linear dynamical systems at the edge of chaos will have as much influence in biology that a similar vision offered by Nobel prize winner Prigogyne in the field of thermodynamcis. The book connects a web of fundamental ideas from the fields of biology, physics, mathematics and computer sciences and requires a strong background in biology that I unfortunately did not possess. The laborious style, the lack of clarity in the writing and the (unnecessary) length of the book should not stop anyone from reading this amazing book.
Stuart Kauffman combines an intellect and a vision that only very few scientists possess. This book is a must.
Rating: 2
Summary: Not sure what the fuss is about
Comment: There are some interesting subjects in this book such as the theory that estimates the size of the attractors for NK automata. These results are non-trivial but I do not see where the grandiose claims about life living on the 'edge of chaos' come from. Maybe in a few years someone might be able to put some more flesh on his hypotheses but right now they seem to be flights of fancy extrapolated from some trivial models that don't actually do anything.
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Title: At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity by Stuart Kauffman ISBN: 0195111303 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: October, 1996 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity by John H. Holland, Heather Mimnaugh ISBN: 0201442302 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: September, 1996 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Investigations by Stuart A. Kauffman ISBN: 0195121058 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: July, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: COMPLEXITY: THE EMERGING SCIENCE AT THE EDGE OF ORDER AND CHAOS by Mitchell M. Waldrop ISBN: 0671872346 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 15 January, 1992 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Emergence: From Chaos to Order (Helix Books) by John H. Holland ISBN: 0738201421 Publisher: Perseus Book Group Pub. Date: April, 1999 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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