Given your interest in the evolution of economic and political systems, you may be interested in my book 'Evolution's Arrow: the direction of evolution and the future of humanity.' The book has just been published in Australia, and I have decided to put the full text on the Internet until it finds a publisher outside Australia. Evolution's Arrow argues that evolution is directional and progressive, and that evolution moves in the direction of producing cooperative organisations of greater scale and evolvability. The book founds this position on a new theory of the evolution of cooperation. It argues that existing approaches to the evolution of cooperation are inadequate. Kin selection, reciprocal altruism, mutualism and simple group selection are unable to account for the evolution that organised molecular processes into cells, cells into organisms, and organisms (including humans) into societies. Evolution's Arrow argues that �management' and �governance' are keys to explaining this evolution of cooperation. The book shows how management can successfully organise cooperative organisations of self-interested individuals. Management can be external (eg. proteins managed by RNA, and human societies managed by rulers or government) or can be internal and distributed (eg. insect societies managed by genes reproduced in each individual insect, multicellular organisms managed by genes reproduced in each cell, human tribes managed by inculcated beliefs reproduced in each tribal member). Chapters 5, 6 and 7 develop this theory, and Chapters 13 to 18 apply it to the evolution of life on earth, including to the past, present and future evolution of human tribes, governed societies and economic systems. Chapters 8 to 12 of Evolution's Arrow argue that evolution itself has evolved. Evolution has progressively improved the ability of evolutionary mechanisms to discover the most effective adaptations. And it has discovered new and better mechanisms. The book looks at the evolution of pre-genetic, genetic, cultural, and supra-individual evolutionary mechanisms. And it shows that the genetic mechanism is not entirely blind and random. Evolution's Arrow goes on to use this understanding of the direction of evolution and of the mechanisms that drive it to identify the next great steps in the evolution of life on earth - the steps that humanity must take if we are to continue to be successful in evolutionary terms. It shows how we must change our societies to increase their scale and evolvability, and how we must change ourselves psychologically to become self-evolving organisms - organisms that are able to adapt in whatever ways are necessary for future evolutionary success, unfettered by their biological or social past. A critical step forward will be the emergence of a highly evolvable, unified and cooperative planetary organisation that is able to adapt as a coherent whole. The Internet address of the book is: http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/jes999/ Do you know anyone who might be interested in having a look at the book? If so, please feel free to forward this e-mail and address onto them. Kind regards, John Stewart. _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
