The Arrival Of The Fittest: Solving Evolution's Greatest Puzzle

Description

We all know about natural selection and the so-called survival of the fittest, which governs how evolution preserves useful adaptations in each subsequent generation of a species. Unfortunately, random change alone could not have produced life as we know it - the maths don't add up, according to cutting-edge research by Andreas Wagner in the revolutionary field of computational biology. In the last decade, Wagner has detected the biological networks guiding the creation of innovation. His investigations of the genes of everything from bacteria to humans is rewriting our understanding of how exactly evolution works and providing insights into the origins of creativity, with lessons that can be applied far beyond genomes. In The Arrival of the Fittest, Wagner delivers a breathtaking new look at our origins, from the genes up.

Author description

Andreas Wagner is Professor in the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Zurich and an award-winning science writer. He received his PhD from Yale and has held research positions at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The author of more than 150 scientific papers published in leading journals including Nature and Science, this is his first book popularizing his new evolutionary systems research. He lives in Zurich.