Chaos and Life: Complexity and Order in Evolution and Thought

Why, in a scientific age, do people routinely turn to astrologers, mediums, cultists, and every kind of irrational practitioner rather than to science to meet their spiritual needs? The answer, according to Richard J. Bird, is that science, especially biology, has embraced a view of life that renders meaningless the coincidences, serendipities, and other seemingly significant occurrences that fill people's everyday existence.

Evolutionary biology rests on the assumption that although events are fundamentally random, some are selected because they are better adapted than others to the surrounding world. This book proposes an alternative view of evolving complexity. Bird argues that randomness means not disorder but infinite order. Complexity arises not from many random events of natural selection (although these are not unimportant) but from the "playing out" of chaotic systems -- which are best described mathematically. When we properly understand the complex interplay of chaos and life, Bird contends, we will see that many events that appear random are actually the outcome of order.

Columbia University Press

An alternative view of evolving complexity. Bird argues that randomness means not disorder but infinite order and that complexity arises from the "playing out" of chaotic systems.

Library Journal

Bird (senior lecturer, Northumbria Univ.; president, Soc. for Chaos Theory in Psychology and Life Sciences) makes a sincere but seriously flawed attempt at a unified explanation of the diversity of organic forms through chaos theory and fractals. He wishes to replace what he calls a "random selection" worldview with an "iterative-sequential" one, in which living forms are derived from repetitions of simple mathematical formulas contained in the repetitive sequences of their DNA. Bird stumbles at the beginning with a critique of Darwinian theory that is fraught with numerous factual errors as well as a basic misunderstanding of its precepts. For example, his repeated characterization of Darwinian evolution as proceeding by the random accumulation of chance genetic events is a caricature of even the most reductive line of neo-Darwinian thought. Bird obviously enjoys making connections among all levels of life experience, and the book finishes on quite a lyrical note. However, the overall symphony is discordant. This is an optional choice for libraries building a collection of divergent worldviews. Other libraries might consider John Holland's Emergence: From Chaos to Order, a core contribution title to the field that is based on solid research by a gifted scientist.-Walter L. Cressler, West Chester Univ. Lib., PA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Richard J. Bird is visiting scholar and sometime senior lecturer at Northumbria University in Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. He is past president of the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and Life Sciences.