Combining evolutionary biology with psychology to explain creativity is a stretch, but Wagner makes an ingenious case.
A thoughtful search for parallels between biological and human innovation.
No slouch at addressing big ideas, Wagner (Evolutionary Biology/Univ. of Zurich) took the first step in Arrival of the Fittest: Solving Evolution’s Greatest Puzzle (2014), which explained life’s spectacular transformation over 4 billion years since its origin. Summarizing that earlier book, he emphasizes that “every one of the millions of species alive today is the most recent link in a nearly endless chain of creative achievement that goes back all the way to life’s origin. Every organism is the product of countless innovations, from the molecular machines inside its cells to the physical architecture of its body.” Most readers associate evolution with Darwinian natural selection, but Wagner points out its limited creative capacity. In natural selection, a better adapted organism produces more offspring. This preserves good traits and discards bad ones until it reaches a peak of fitness. This process works perfectly in an “adaptive landscape” with a single peak, but it fails when there are many—and higher—peaks. Conquering the highest—true creativity—requires descending into a valley and trying again. Natural selection never chooses the worse over the better, so it can’t descend. Wagner devotes most of his book to the 20th-century discovery of the sources of true biological creativity: genetic drift, recombination, and other processes that inject diversity into the evolutionary process. His final section on human creativity contains less hard science but plenty of imagination. The human parallel with natural selection is laissez faire competition, which is efficient but equally intolerant of trial and error. Far more productive are systems that don’t penalize failure but encourage play, experimentation, dreaming, and diverse points of view. In this vein, American schools fare poorly, but Asian schools are worse.
Combining evolutionary biology with psychology to explain creativity is a stretch, but Wagner makes an ingenious case.Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5416-4533-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
The history of the USS Monitor, written with panache, sophisticated understanding, and attention to detail by deKay (Chronicles of the Frigate Macedonian, not reviewed). The Monitor may have been a ``doughty little Civil War ironclad,'' as deKay writes, but it was an elegantly minimalist mechanical marvel, a milestone in naval technology, with a design so original (including a revolving turret), it had 40 patentable innovations. At a time when naval strategy relied upon ships of the line—colossal square riggers with 120 guns and a crew of up to 1,200—the Monitor was a freak and a harbinger: armor-clad, steam- powered, with a mere two guns and a crew of 58. It was hardly the first of its kind—the king of Syracuse had an armor-plated vessel in the third century b.c., and Fulton's Clermont was steaming along in 1807—yet it was the right ship, in the right spot, at the right time. DeKay tells the Monitor's story with building suspense: It was the brainchild of the Swedish engineer John Ericsson, which became the best hope of the Union forces to maintain a critical blockade at Hampton Roads, Va. Finally, the author relates the wicked confrontation with the Confederate's ``awesome dark monster,'' Merrimac, another ironclad whose tale deKay sharply limns. It was a standoff at first, then the smaller Monitor exploited its opponent's unwieldiness to gain ascendancy. DeKay's tale is a richly brocaded one, serving up the sweetheart deals and political shenanigans that marked the Monitor's progress; elaborating on the rumors that flew before the epic battle like expectations before a championship heavyweight fight; bringing into play the weather and tides and most any other thing that touched upon events. This book is, simply, a little treasure. (25 b&w illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 13, 1997
ISBN: 0-8027-1330-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
Sound insight, but not for beginners.
Ercetin and her co-authors offer a collection of essays and scholarly papers aimed at all types of organizations, hoping to inspire managers at all levels to assess and develop the organizational intelligence of their arena and, therefore, of their entire organization.
According to the author, organizational intelligence (OI), the ability to take in, analyze and respond to new information and changes, can determine the success or failure of an organization. Akin to the way a person’s IQ influences all aspects of life, an organization’s OI plays a role in everything, from employee satisfaction, to overall performance, to efficiency and streamlining. It is important that managers at every level–as well as the employees who determine actual workflow processes–are working toward a higher OI, whatever their sphere of influence. Toward this end, Ercetin and company put forth not only the concept of OI, but a scale for measuring it and instructions for applying that scale, as well as commentary on different applications for OI and metaphors for understanding its different aspects. Unfortunately, OI is a complex concept, and those who understand it well seem to speak a language different than that of the average employee or midlevel manager. That, combined with some English-language and/or translation difficulties, will make this book difficult for any novice to understand and thus extremely difficult to apply in a meaningful way. On the other hand, those with previous training in the language and concepts the book discusses will find interesting, compelling ideas for further inquiry. The authors explore different aspects of matter and liquid as a metaphor for OI and expand the usual concept of OI with their study of peace intelligence. It’s fascinating, but not straightforward or rudimentary.
Sound insight, but not for beginners.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4196-3582-3
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
