Everything Evolves: Why Evolution Explains More Than We Think, from Proteins to Politics

“Whether consciously or not, people have been applying evolutionary principles for millenia,” according to biologist Vellend (The Theory of Ecological Communities) in this accessible treatise. The author focuses on evolutionary biologist Graham Bell’s 2008 claim that “the whole of the natural world can be understood in terms of just” two systems: physics and evolution. He aims to shed light on the latter, arguing that it deserves “greater recognition” as a pillar of science. He explains the principles underlying evolutionary change in biological systems, and how those principles are applied in a variety of fields. For example, he notes that programmers get computers to “evolve solutions” to problems, and that evolutionary ideas have long been applied to economics, the models for which use “imported concepts” from biology. Elsewhere, he argues that universities should be restructured away from dividing knowledge between the natural sciences and the social sciences and, instead, create a faculty of physical sciences and a faculty of evolutionary sciences, the latter of which would include history and political science. Though he doesn’t address the likelihood of such propositions, Vellend is skilled at explaining science to the nonspecialist. It’s a fascinating primer on evolution’s wide reach. (Aug.)