Congratulations, John!
John Stewart (our "remote" ECCO member, John lives in
Australia) has made his book "EVOLUTION'S ARROW: The direction
of evolution and the future of humanity" available via the
Amazon webshop, where readers can submit reviews. There are only two
reviews until now, but they both give the book top marks, as you can
see below.
I too wish to emphasize that John's work is very important for
our whole ECCO approach, and I would recommend it to all.
Specifically for Nathalie I would add that John's view of the
evolution of cooperation is related to Lynn Margulis' theory of
symbiogenesis, but in my impression it is both wider (not just
biology but also the social sciences) and deeper (by analysing the
general mechanism that drives symbiotic bonding).
The book can be freely downloaded at
http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/jes999/ or otherwise ordered via the
Amazon link below.
John, by the way, perhaps you can make a link from your page
back to the ECCO page: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/EVOLCOMP/ ? Like
that, we can drive visitors to each others' publications...
Francis
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Reviewer:
Copthorne
Macdonald
(Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island Canada)
When I first read Evolution's
Arrow in 2001, John Stewart's analysis of the human situation and its
relationship to evolutionary processes impressed me greatly. In my
own writing since then I have quoted passages from his book and
commented favorably on his view of things. It is a book rich in
important insights that can help humanity deal with its present
multi-problem predicament. [...]
I can here only hint at the
insightful gold that resides between the covers of Evolution's Arrow.
Whether your interest is a clearer understanding of evolution, or
saving evolution's experiment here on earth from today's human
mis-management, get and read this book.
Reviewer:
Michael
Dowd (Pleasant
Hill, TN USA)
Over the last decade or so I
have read dozens of excellent books related to science and religion,
sustainability, the epic of evolution, and the future of
humanity.[...] Evolution's Arrow, by John Stewart, is one of the
wisest, most insightful, and most inspiring I've ever encountered. I
devoured it twice in the last week.
To tell the truth, I simply cannot speak too highly of this book. My hunch is that at the end of my life I'll still rate Evolution's Arrow as one of the most significant books I've ever read.
Stewart's thesis is simple: The universe is going somewhere, there's a direction to evolution, and this has major consequences for humanity. Without resorting to teleology, Stewart argues that wherever life emerges in the cosmos, evolution will progress in the direction of greater cooperation and complexity at ever increasing scale and evolvability. Why cooperate? Because in a cosmos where natural selection is a primary driver of evolution, those who cooperate, whether they be molecules, cells, organisms, or societies, will outcompete those who do not. Cooperative organizations are more competitive and adaptable than non-cooperative organizations, if, that is, the system is "managed" in such a way as to ensure that cooperators benefit from their cooperating and non-cooperators pay for their non-cooperating. Without management, or governance, freeloaders and cheats will typically outcompete and out-reproduce cooperators. But where management - effective governance - can ensure that the system captures the results of cooperating and non-cooperating, evolution will produce cooperative organizations out of self-interested individuals and continue doing so at ever wider scale and adaptability. [...]
Others, of course (Aurobindo,
Teilhard, de Rosnay, Wright, Russell, Hubbard, and Wilber come to
mind) have said similar things. What makes Stewart's contribution
unique, and invaluable, is both the clarity of his argument and,
especially, his vision of where and how humanity needs to change in
order to align with and embody the evolutionary impulse. His chapter
on creating a "vertical market" for models of effective
global governance is worth the price of the book in itself. His
vision of how to organizationally move into the future, both
individually and collectively, is both alluring and
compelling.
Some readers may find irritating the author's habit of repetition, but I was grateful. By the time I closed the book, his main points had become so much my own that I can trust they will not disappear as a passing enthusiasm.
Evolution's Arrow is both mind-expanding and trust building. If I had to recommend reading only one book on evolution and the future of humanity, I'd suggest this one. It rocks!
---
Read the full reviews
at:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0646394975/evolutiosarro-20
--
Francis Heylighen
Center "Leo Apostel"
Free University of Brussels
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
Francis Heylighen
Center "Leo Apostel"
Free University of Brussels
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html
