The Second Evolution: The secret role of emotion in evolution

by Danny Vendramini

In his latest book, theoretical biologist Danny Vendramini drops a bombshell into the evolution debate. Although a Darwinist and atheist, Vendramini concedes there are real problems with Darwin’s theory of natural selection. ‘For the first three billon years, natural selection produced nothing but algae. And not even Darwin believed it could explain complex instincts.’
But it’s Vendramini’s explanation for this flaw in Darwinian theory that will really shake things up. ‘Ten years of research has convinced me natural selection isn’t the only evolutionary process operating on Earth.’
He then outlines a ground-breaking new unified theory of macroevolution, emotions and behavior, the first since Darwin.
About 543 million years ago, says Vendramini, natural selection created a second evolutionary process to achieve what it couldn’t: provide animals with adaptive behaviors influenced by their environment.
But Vendramini says the second evolutionary process, which he calls teemosis, also had an indirect effect on speciation and macroevolution. The result was a sudden burst of evolutionary activity that created the first true animals: and the ‘Cambrian explosion’.
Although the most revolutionary biological theory since Darwin, Vendramini’s second evolution hypothesis is based on the simple premise that everything in nature evolves, including evolution. A must read for academics and anyone interested in outstanding the real and until now, undiscovered forces of evolution.

536 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 19, 2015

About the author

Danny Vendramini was born in Alice Springs, in the Australian outback. He had successful careers in a number of fields - as a theatre director, TV producer and award-winning film director and scriptwriter - before turning to evolutionary biology.

As an atheist and Darwinian scholar, Vendramini's work is anchored in evidence based research and deduction, but ultimately it is his artistic imagination and scientific creativity that distinguishes his evolutionary theories.

He is a member of the Independent Scholars Association of Australia Inc, lives in Sydney, and is married to the writer Rosie Scott. They have two daughters, Josie, a journalist, filmmaker and actor; and Bella, actor and bestselling author of 'Biting the Big Apple'.