Entropy, Information, and Evolution New Perspectives on Physical and Biological Evolution

Can recent developments in thermodynamics and information theory offer a way out ofthe current crisis in evolutionary theory? One of the most exciting and controversial areas ofscientific research in recent years has been the application of the principles of nonequilibriumthermodynamics to the problems of the physical evolution of the universe, the origins of life, thestructure and succession of ecological systems, and biological evolution. These sixteen originalessays by evolutionists, ecologists, molecular biologists, physical chemists, physicists, andphilosophers of science provide the best current summary of this developing researchprogram.Chapters in the book's first part - by Steven Frautschi, David Layser, and Dilip Kondoputi -explore the application of the second law of thermodynamics to physical evolution and the origins oflife. Those in the second part - by Lionel G. Harrison, Lionel Johnson, Eric D. Schneider, andJeffrey S. Wicken - take up the thermodynamics of ecology and evolution; Johnson and Wickencriticize neoDarwinian orthodoxy and present alternative theories relating thermodynamics toevolutionary ecology. In the book's third section, E. O. Wiley defends the theory that phylogeneticevolution may be predicted from a general version of the second law reformulated in terms ofinformation theory, and Daniel R. Brooks, D. David Cumming, and Paul H. LeBlond also defend thatcontroversial theory.The book concludes with a series of essays that evaluate these contributionsand point out their implications for biology, philosophy, and the social sciences.The editors areall professors at California State University, Fullerton. Bruce H. Weber teaches chemistry andbiochemistry, David J. Depew teaches philosophy, and James D. Smith teaches zoology. A BradfordBook.