Customer Reviews

Chaos and Life: Complexity and Order in Evolution and Thought

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The title "Chaos and Life" implies a model of how chaos is at the core of life. The core of life in this book, on the other hand, is a throwback model: the Turing machine. That's not to say that the topic of chaos is absent from this book - merely that it is not at its ultimate center.

Bird suggests that each living cell is a computer. I'll buy that. But then he goes on to suggest that since DNA resembles the symbol tape in a Turing machine that it in fact *is* the symbol tape in a cellular Turing machine. More than that, the symbols in DNA represent *numbers* and so addition, subtraction, multiplication, and so on, are taking place in each cell. RNA is used as registers in this model. I call this a throwback model in the sense of cognitive science, in which the Turing machine is the "classical" but largely discredited model of cognition, having subsequently been replaced in favor of connectionist and embodied dynamics models.

Is it unreasonable to argue that each living cell is a Turing machine carrying around its program in its DNA and storing data in its RNA? No. It's merely unexpected in a book that purports to be establishing a fundamental connection between chaos and life. Where is a proposal that the computation going on in each cell is a result of the complex network of non-linear interactions going on between the cell's genes, proteins, and environment? Where is a proposal that the computational states in each cell are a result of a series of leaps from strange attractor to strange attractor? Those are the kinds of ideas I would have expected to be at the heart of this book - unfortunately, at its core this book is more along the lines of "Turing Machines and Life".

Bird makes a strong case for the use of Chaos theory and Fractals to model life. But he sometimes goes too far and seems to ascribe more power to the mathematics than it actually has; he makes it sound mystical at times. On page 266, the paragraph starting with Chomsky is very profound but isolated and not developed in the remainder of the text. All in all, I recommend the book.

The author of this book might be an expert on chaos, but he clearly has no formal training in biology. This book is full of mistakes that imply a poor understanding of the current state of biological research, or a deliberate misrepresentation of that research. For example Bird denigrates the contribution of molecular biology by suggesting that the chemistry of life isn't actually biology (it is), and that molecules can't be connected to the formation of organisms (they can and have been). Furthur, Bird argues that natural selection can't explain diversity because it would take too long for chance to create a protein, dna molecule, or cell. However Bird misunderstands the theory when he implies that life came about by chance. While chance may produce variation, it is selection that preserves good variants and eliminates bad. Selection IS the organizing principle that Bird calls out for.

Additionally, there are clear logical errors in the arguments in the text (e.g. argument through false analogy, appeal to authority, begging the question, etc...). The author should have consulted with one or more practicing researchers before sending this to press.

There are also factual errors, and incorrect citations (e.g. Bates, not Bateson, proposed the theory of mimicry).

This book is a typical autodidact's "theory of everything" and you will be disappointed if you expect better.

For those who want to learn about chaos theory, fractals, and how they might tie in to biology, Wolfram's "A new kind of science" is much more compelling.

This fascinating voyage braiding evolutionary thinking with chaos theory starts with a cogent critique of current Neo-Darwinism in a fashion reminiscent of Robert Wesson's _Beyond Natural Selection_. Students of evolution are seldom aware of the criticisms of Darwin springing from scientists themselves, or of the attempts to really grapple with the problems without the distractions of the current Darwin debate, which is mostly propaganda.