Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution

by Peter A. Corning

In recent years, evolutionary theorists have come to recognize that the reductionist, individualist, gene-centered approach to evolution cannot sufficiently account for the emergence of complex biological systems over time. Peter A. Corning has been at the forefront of a new generation of complexity theorists who have been working to reshape the foundations of evolutionary theory. Well known for his Synergism Hypothesis—a theory of complexity in evolution that assigns a key causal role to various forms of functional synergy—Corning puts this theory into a much broader framework in Holistic Darwinism , addressing many of the issues and concepts associated with the evolution of complex systems. Corning's paradigm embraces and integrates many related theoretical developments of recent years, from multilevel selection theory to niche construction theory, gene-culture coevolution theory, and theories of self-organization. Offering new approaches to thermodynamics, information theory, and economic analysis, Corning suggests how all of these domains can be brought firmly within what he characterizes as a post–neo-Darwinian evolutionary synthesis.

Genres: Evolution, Science

504 pages, Hardcover

First published May 14, 2014

About the author

Peter Andrew Corning (born 1935) is an American biologist, consultant, and complex systems scientist, and Director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems, in Friday Harbor, Washington, and is known especially for his work on the causal role of synergy in evolution.

Reviews

[Mark Longo · Rating 3 out of 5]

If only the author had stopped after part 1, this would have been an amazing book. His discussion of the history of evolutionary thought and its relation to various systems theories, as well as his explication of his pet "Synergism Hypothesis" was excellent. Corning has a gift for revealing the reductionist/linear thinking emperor's lack of clothes in the face of any complex system where causes form a matrix of relationships rather than a direct line.

But then the book continues, disjointedly, boringly, and not at all convincingly into social and ethical realms where Corning doesn't really have anything all that profound to say. If I didn't have a pathological need to finish every book I started, I would have (and in retrospect should have) quit reading long before the end of the book. In any event, I'd still highly recommend reading part 1, just skip the rest.