The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems
by Fritjof Capra
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Book Summary Information
Author: Fritjof CapraEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1997-09-15
ISBN: 0385476760
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Anchor
Book Reviews of The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems
Book Review: This Book LOOKS Like It Has All The Right Stuff In It
Summary: 2 Stars
this book would have been dynamite if it were actually written by a scientist. Capra covers a great selection of the latest scientific work that often doesn't end up being taught to the average student graduating from college, but should be. The material has profound implications for how we understand living beings. Alas, he does not seem to approach his material as a scientist, even though he claims he was a physicist, at points he seems more of a mystic.
the topics: some history of biology and systems thinking, cybernetics, negative feedback, the interplay between focus on parts (molecular biology) and systems thinking (confused), order at far from equilibrium (dissipative structures), nonlinear mathematical dynamical systems, the mandelbrot set, the self referential, self sustaining systems that are living cells, cellular automata, and boolean N-K networks. He even gives fair references to the originators of the work on these systems.
So it's got all the right ingredients from the last 50 years worth of science that is showing us how complex living creatures can be the consequence of basic molecular interactions.
Alas he doesn't give enough detail in his descriptions. It's a pity, because he almost does and with a little more work he could have. Though for someone who claims he was a scientist he blunders quite a bit, either on fact or emphasis on what is important to each system.
And alas he's too greedy and wants to take his book all the way to some mystical concept of mind/world. In all, a dissappointment from a book subtitled: a new scientific understanding of living systems
A better places to go then would be Ian Stewart's "Life's Other Secret: The New Mathematics of the Living World"
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