Chaos and Life

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.

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.

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.

Well written and clear, makes a strong case.

Paul Johnson:
This is a formidable piece.

Robin Robertson:
Chaos and Life...literally challenges many of our accepted views of reality...it's extremely well-written, so that if readers are willing to make the effort, they can tread new paths of thought.

Bird's explanation of how organisms tap the universe of archetypes is... radically ingenious.

Martin Lockley:
Bird reveals his philosophical, almost mystical, inclinations... Bird's book is a product of this creative imagination that grapples with the very process itself.

This thought-provoking work will be valuable reading for students and for professionals trained in ecology and evolution.... it should be required reading for advanced undergraduates, for graduate student seminars, and for discussion courses on the nature of organic evolution. Recommended [for] general readers, upper-level undergraduates and above.