Description

How can new insights into evolution help us solve problems in life, art, business and science?

‘A wonderful, mind-expanding book. Prepare to be surprised, enlightened and awed.’ Alice Roberts, author of Ancestors

In Darwin’s survival of the fittest, each step must be uphill as life progresses towards an evolutionary peak. There is no turning back. So what happens when life needs to cross a valley in the wilds of an adaptive landscape to reach the highest summit?

World-renowned biologist Andreas Wagner reveals that life does not only walk – it also leaps.

Drawing on pioneering research, Wagner explores life’s creative process and how it bears a striking resemblance to how we humans work. A beguiling symmetry links Picasso struggling through forty versions of Guernica and the way evolution transformed a dinosaur’s claw into a condor’s wing. This new understanding is already revolutionising our approach to problem-solving across the sciences. In the near future, applied in spheres as diverse as the economy and education, it will enable us to do so much more.

Life Finds a Way is a thought-provoking and deeply hopeful look at the force that shapes our world.

Publisher Review

'Life Finds a Way weaves a coherent and compelling narrative about how nature achieves creativity. Not only that, we also learn how to cultivate creativity in our own lives.' -- George Dyson, author of Turing's Cathedral 'Finding surprising convergences between evolving species and an active imagination, Wagner persuasively argues that human inventiveness is a reflection not just of human nature but of nature itself.' -- Anthony Brandt, composer and co-author of The Runaway Species 'Andreas Wagner has again cut through to the heart of a vital question. The notion that genomes are set up to explore, through trial and error, in the hope of leaping across the adaptive landscape to new peaks is a fresh concept. Wagner draws out fascinating parallels with the way innovation works in human society.' -- Matt Ridley, author of The Evolution of Everything 'In this remarkably wide-ranging book, Andreas Wagner shows what nature can teach us about creativity, and his answers hold an important message for the way we educate our children and run our institutions and societies.' -- Philip Ball, author of Beyond Weird 'Wagner has done it again. This is a wonderful, mind-expanding book. Prepare to be surprised, enlightened and awed as Wagner reveals the sources of human and natural creativity.' -- Alice Roberts, Professor of Public Engagement with Science, University of Birmingham 'An impressively brisk intellectual tour through the glory days of early 20th century evolutionary biology.' * Wall Street Journal *