The Mermaid's Tale: Four Billion Years of Cooperation in the Making of Living Things
No Customer Reviews
Select Format
Select Condition 
Book Overview
Even after 150 years, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is irresistibly compelling. But how can this idea--in which competition prevails--be consistent with all that we know about the thoroughly cooperative nature of life at the genetic and cellular level? This book reconciles these discrepancies.
Assembling a set of general principles, authors Kenneth Weiss and Anne Buchanan build a comprehensive, unified theory that applies on the evolutionary time scale but also on the developmental and ecological scales where daily life is lived, and cells, organisms, and species interact. They present this story through a diversity of examples spanning the fundamental challenges that organisms have faced throughout the history of life. This shows that even very complex traits can be constructed simply, based on these principles. Although relentless competitive natural selection is widely assumed to be the primary mover of evolutionary change, The Mermaid's Tale shows how life more generally works on the basis of cooperation. The book reveals that the focus on competition and cooperation is largely an artifact of the compression of time--a distortion that dissolves when the nature and origins of adapted life are viewed primarily from developmental and evolutionary time scales.Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0674031938
ISBN13:9780674031937
Release Date:February 2009
Publisher:Harvard University Press
Length:336 Pages
Weight:2.60 lbs.
Dimensions:1.2" x 6.4" x 9.2"
Customer Reviews
0 rating
Copyright © 2025 Thriftbooks.com
Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information | Cookie Policy | Cookie Preferences | Accessibility Statement
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
ThriftBooks ® and the ThriftBooks ® logo are registered trademarks of Thrift Books Global, LLC
