A new theory of evolution begins to emerge in the pages of The Altenberg 16: An Expos of the Evolution Industry. Written by Suzan Mazur--a print and television journalist whose reports have appeared in the Financial Times, The Economist, Archaeology, Omni, and many other publications--the book is a front row seat to the thinking of the great evolutionary science minds of our time about the need to reformulate the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution. We hear from world renowned scientists such as Richard Lewontin, Lynn Margulis, Niles Eldredge, Richard Dawkins, the "evo-devo" revolutionaries, NASA astrobiologists, and others. The book grew out of a story Mazur broke online in March 2008--titled "Altenberg The Woodstock of Evolution?"--about the now famous meeting at Konrad Lorenz Institute in Altenberg, Austria in July 2008, where 16 scientists discussed expanding evolutionary thinking beyond outdated hypotheses. (MIT will publish the proceedings in April 2010.) Science magazine noted that Mazur's reporting "reverberated throughout the evolutionary biology community." Mazur says she was punished for getting out in front of the story and banned from the symposium but realized the story was bigger than Altenberg (which covered events beginning 500 million years ago) and spoke to scientists who were not invited, including those investigating pre-biotic evolution. She came to the conclusion that evolutionary science suffers because many in the scientific establishment refuse to acknowledge that the old science has served its purpose and there is disagreement about what the new evolution paradigm is. She thinks the dam is now breaking because the public (who funds science) has become a party to the discourse via the Internet and seeks answers to fundamental questions about evolution that scientists so far can't definitively answer.

Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, a distinguished philosopher and scientist working in tandem, reveal major flaws at the heart of Darwinian evolutionary theory. They do not deny Darwin's status as an outstanding scientist but question the inferences he drew from his observations. Combining the results of cutting-edge work in experimental biology with crystal-clear philosophical argument they mount a devastating critique of the central tenets of Darwin's account of the origin of species. The logic underlying natural selection is the survival of the fittest under changing environmental pressure. This logic, they argue, is mistaken. They back up the claim with evidence of what actually happens in nature. This is a rare achievement - the short book that is likely to make a great deal of difference to a very large subject. What Darwin Got Wrong will be controversial. The authors' arguments will reverberate through the scientific world. At the very least they will transform the debate about evolution.

This book proposes an important new paradigm for understanding biological evolution. Shapiro demonstrates why traditional views of evolution are inadequate to explain the latest evidence, and presents an alternative. His information- and systems-based approach integrates advances in symbiogenesis, epigenetics, and saltationism, and points toward an emerging synthesis of physical, information, and biological sciences.

The extraordinary role of viruses in evolution and how this is revolutionising biology and medicine.

This collection of thirty-eight impressionist episodes describes a white man's friendship with a group of Ashanti tribespeople from the Gold Coast of Africa (the former British colony known today as Ghana), who in 1896 were put on display as living objects in a popular ethnographic exhibit in the Vienna Zoological Garden, then still located in Vienna's famous amusement park called Prater. The exhibit caused a veritable "Ashanti fever" as the show attracted five to six thousand visitors per day. Altenberg, barely disguised as Ashantee's autobiographical character Sir Peter, shows a genuine curiosity about the cultural Other and paints a critical picture of his Austrian contemporaries' prejudices, revealed as they were experienced by the Africans. In "Ashantee", beautiful, sensual, childlike, and wholesome African "paradise people" provide inspiration for the tormented civilised soul of the fin-de-siècle European. Eccentric coffeehouse writer Altenberg is famous for his unique telegram style. Critic Karl Kraus claimed, "One sentence by Peter Altenberg is equal to an entire Viennese novel". "Ashantee" introduces the reader to a little-known facet of vibrant Vienna around 1900. Combining cross-cultural sympathy with colonial stereotyping, the book has gained new popularity as current debates about the challenges of cultural coexistence in the global society have renewed interest in the literature about encounters between people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. In this edition, Peter Altenberg's literary text is illustrated with reprints of original drawings and photographs of Altenberg and the Ashanti in Vienna.

Longlisted for the Orange Prize 2012. 1830. Neil and Lizzie MacKenzie, a newly married young couple, arrive at the remotest part of the British Isles: St Kilda. He is a minister determined to save the souls of the pagan inhabitants; his pregnant wife speaks no Gaelic and, when her husband is away, has only the waves and the cry of gulls for company. As both find themselves tested to the limit in this harsh new environment, Lizzie soon discovers that marriage is as treacherous a country as the land that surrounds her.

"An artful exploration of how the language of science has replaced old mythologies" --

A major synthesis of homology, written by a top researcher in the field Homology—a similar trait shared by different species and derived from common ancestry, such as a seal's fin and a bird’s wing—is one of the most fundamental yet challenging concepts in evolutionary biology. This groundbreaking book provides the first mechanistically based theory of what homology is and how it arises in evolution. Günter Wagner, one of the preeminent researchers in the field, argues that homology, or character identity, can be explained through the historical continuity of character identity networks—that is, the gene regulatory networks that enable differential gene expression. He shows how character identity is independent of the form and function of the character itself because the same network can activate different effector genes and thus control the development of different shapes, sizes, and qualities of the character. Demonstrating how this theoretical model can provide a foundation for understanding the evolutionary origin of novel characters, Wagner applies it to the origin and evolution of specific systems, such as cell types; skin, hair, and feathers; limbs and digits; and flowers. The first major synthesis of homology to be published in decades, Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation reveals how a mechanistically based theory can serve as a unifying concept for any branch of science concerned with the structure and development of organisms, and how it can help explain major transitions in evolution and broad patterns of biological diversity.

The first complete overview of evolutionary computing, the collective name for a range of problem-solving techniques based on principles of biological evolution, such as natural selection and genetic inheritance. The text is aimed directly at lecturers and graduate and undergraduate students. It is also meant for those who wish to apply evolutionary computing to a particular problem or within a given application area. The book contains quick-reference information on the current state-of-the-art in a wide range of related topics, so it is of interest not just to evolutionary computing specialists but to researchers working in other fields.