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Planetary Mind

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Darwin's theory of evolution is hamstrung by its reductionist cast into positing theories of 'local action' with a mechanical metaphor. And yet a theory of global action, in a biospheric and mathematical sense, seems to haunt the data of evolution. Although it enters dangerous terrain, this work, by a qualified astrophysicist, embarks on this quest for the planetary and non-local factors in the evolution of life. Although I am wary of this kind of thinking, if only because it is hard to be exact, this work is so elegantly done, both as a critique of Darwinism, and an exposition of the Bergsonian theme, that it must stand guard on the genre, too liable to New Age confusions.
The problem is that what we suspect is not quite what we can demonstrate. However this wariness does not do justice to the importance of this perspective which must endure exile in a stone kingdom of positivist evolutionary trilobites.
In any case, the nicely illustrated presentation comprehensively covers the difficulties of Darwinian selection, the statistical problems pointed to by Hoyle and others, the strengths and limitations of theories of self-organization such as those of S. Kauffman, with a brief introduction to the ideas of Bergson and Whitehead.
A look at the history of philosophy will demonstrate a curious 'what happens then...' as far as the argument by design, pantheism, reductionism, and natural law is concerned. This concealed prophecy of the philosophers who skidded between the Spinozas, Kants, Hegels, before the Darwins will alert at least one of the three little piggies to warn the other two, and commence a quiet enquiry in this direction. The rest will soon follow, no doubt...