Signs of life : how complexity pervades biology

Signs of Life is an entirely new approach to the problems of understanding living systems. It applies the mathematics of order and disorder, of entropy, chance, and randomness, of chaos and nonlinear dynamics to the various mysteries of the living world at all levels. Less a set of answers than a guide to thinking about living systems, this book will help set the agenda for biology in the coming century.

in Every Major Field Of Biology, From Molecular Genetics And Neurobiology, Through Animal Behavior And Ecology, To Evolution, Extinction, And Economics, There Are Well-known Phenomena That Today's Standard Theories Are Powerless To Explain: Why Don't Cells In Identical Environments With Identical Genomes Live Identical Lives? How Do Such Simple Creatures As Ants And Termites Manage Such Complex Behavior As Building Nests? Why Did All The Animal Kingdom's Basic Body Plans Appear In A Single Geological Era, And No New Ones Since? Yet, As Ricard Sole And Brian Goodwin Show, Various Tools Of Complexity Theory Can Offer Us New Ways To Understand These Phenomena. A Tour Of Biology Such As You've Never Seen Before, Signs Of Life Is About Explaining The Unexplainable -- By Using New Ideas To Answer Questions Yesterday's Ideas Can't Help Us With.

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this Is A Paperbound Reprint Of A 2000 Book. The Authors (whose Affiliations Are Not Stated) Apply The Mathematical Tools Of Complexity Theory To Model Biological Processes In Terms Of Complex Dynamics From Which Characteristic Patterns Of Order Emerge. They Examine Genetic Networks, Chaos In Brain Function, Emergent Phenomenon Of Ant Colonies, The Nonlinear Behavior Of Complex Ecologies, And Fractal Cities. Annotation C. Book News, Inc., Portland, Or (booknews.com)

"The authors touch on every major field of biology, from molecular genetics and neurobiology, through animal behavior and ecology, to evolution, extinction and even economics. At each level, they describe well-known phenomena that today's standard theories, steeped as they are in a kind of worship of the gene, are powerless to explain. Yet various tools of complexity theory can model them quite nicely. Signs of Life, then, is about explaining the unexplainable - more precisely, using new ideas to think about things today's ideas can't help us with. For instance: it's generally believed that cells with identical genomes in identical environments will lead identical lives. But they don't. Why? How do such simple creatures as ants and termites manage such complex behavior as building huge nests and moving in swarms? And why do certain ant nests show pulses of activity that are not apparent in any individual ant? Classical ecology tells us that if two strongly competitive species try to occupy a common resource or territory, "competitive exclusion" will drive one of them to extinction. But if this is so, why are natural ecosystems so diverse? And why did all the basic body plans of the animal kingdom appear in a single geological era, and no new ones since? Was this inevitable, or a grand accident?" Signs of Life applies the mathematics of order and disorder, of entropy, chance, and randomness, of chaos and nonlinear dynamics to the various mysteries of the living world at all levels. This book is an entirely new approach to understanding living systems and will help set the agenda for biology in the coming century. "Signs of Life will show you an entirely new approach to the problems of understanding living systems. It applies the mathematics of order and disorder, of entropy, chance, and randomness, of chaos and nonlinear dynamics to the various mysteries of the living world at all levels."--Jacket One of the impulses behind science is the desire to gain reliable knowledge about the world so that we can control it.