Science Resources RSS Feeds
|
 |
 |
 |
| View Larger Image | Self-Organization in Biological Systems: (Princeton Studies in Complexity) | Paperbackby Scott Camazine (Author), Jean-Louis Deneubourg (Author), Nigel R. Franks (Author), James Sneyd (Author), Guy Theraula (Author), Eric Bonabeau (Author)
| List Price: | $55.00 | | Price: | $37.12 | | You Save: | $17.88 (33%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Princeton University Press | | Page Count: | 560 Pages | | Publication Date: | August 28, 2003 | | Sales Rank: | 513,649th |
|
EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
The synchronized flashing of fireflies at night. The spiraling patterns of an aggregating slime mold. The anastomosing network of army-ant trails. The coordinated movements of a school of fish. Researchers are finding in such patterns--phenomena that have fascinated naturalists for centuries--a fertile new approach to understanding biological systems: the study of self-organization. This book, a primer on self-organization in biological systems for students and other enthusiasts, introduces readers to the basic concepts and tools for studying self-organization and then examines numerous examples of self-organization in the natural world. Self-organization refers to diverse pattern formation processes in the physical and biological world, from sand grains assembling into rippled dunes to cells combining to create highly structured tissues to individual insects working to create sophisticated societies. What these diverse systems hold in common is the proximate means by which they acquire order and structure. In self-organizing systems, pattern at the global level emerges solely from interactions among lower-level components. Remarkably, even very complex structures result from the iteration of surprisingly simple behaviors performed by individuals relying on only local information. This striking conclusion suggests important lines of inquiry: To what degree is environmental rather than individual complexity responsible for group complexity? To what extent have widely differing organisms adopted similar, convergent strategies of pattern formation? How, specifically, has natural selection determined the rules governing interactions within biological systems? Broad in scope, thorough yet accessible, this book is a self-contained introduction to self-organization and complexity in biology--a field of study at the forefront of life sciences research. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 2 reviews)
|
Great book, what happened to the website? by Blaine Lilly (Columbus, Ohio)  5 Stars
October 13, 2007
I strongly agree with everything the reviewer above had to say.... with one caveat. At several points in the text, the authors refer to programs that apparently were available on the web when the book first appeared. If anyone out there knows where that site migrated, you'd be doing the readers of this book a great service by letting us know.
Otherwise, this is a very interesting text, well worth it.
| |
Real, practical studies of self-organization in biology by majorka (Norway) 5 Stars
September 19, 2002
Many books containing theory upon theory about self-organization in the biosphere have appeared in recent years. This book could be an important catalyst towards putting more of these theories to the test. While it has long been recognized that self-organization could be important in biological systems, many of these studies are computational models only. Many are very convincing, but unless steps are taken towards verifying these models and scrutinizing their validity, it is very difficult to know whether the theories have any real value towards understanding real life.The strenght of this book lies in its rigorous introductions to the relevant theoretical concepts in self-organization, followed up by a general debate of self-organization versus competing explanations. The book spends many chapters looking at particular natural phenomena in detail, and examines possibilities for self-organization in these. In spite of the fact that these chapters have different authors, they follow each other well. The book is unusually well put together for this kind of collection of works by multiple authors.The majority of the case study chapters involve studies of social insects, which narrows the topic a little in comparison with the more ambitious title. Self-organization also occurs elsewhere in biology, and personally I am a little dissapointed that a wider range of case studies were not chosen for the book. This could have spawned more interest and further work in other areas of the field.However, the book is definitely well worth reading for biologists and other scientists interested in self-organization, and represents a major step towards establishing studies of self-organization in biology as a serious field.
| |
SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution
by Stuart A. Kauffman (Author)
Stuart Kauffman here presents a brilliant new paradigm for evolutionary biology, one that extends the basic concepts of Darwinian evolution to accommodate recent findings and perspectives from the fields of biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics. The book drives to the heart of the exciting debate on the origins of life and maintenance of order in complex biological systems. It focuses on the concept of self-organization: the spontaneous emergence of order that is widely observed...
| 
| Complex Adaptive Systems: An Introduction to Computational Models of Social Life (Princeton Studies in Complexity)
by John H. Miller (Author), Scott E. Page (Author)
This book provides the first clear, comprehensive, and accessible account of complex adaptive social systems, by two of the field's leading authorities. Such systems--whether political parties, stock markets, or ant colonies--present some of the most intriguing theoretical and practical challenges confronting the social sciences. Engagingly written, and balancing technical detail with intuitive explanations, Complex Adaptive Systems focuses on the key tools and ideas that have emerged in the...
| 
| Complexity: A Guided Tour
by Melanie Mitchell (Author)
What enables individually simple insects like ants to act with such precision and purpose as a group? How do trillions of individual neurons produce something as extraordinarily complex as consciousness? What is it that guides self-organizing structures like the immune system, the World Wide Web, the global economy, and the human genome? These are just a few of the fascinating and elusive questions that the science of complexity seeks to answer.
In this remarkably accessible...
| 
| The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature
by Philip Ball (Author)
For centuries, scientists have struggled to understand the origins of the patterns and forms found in nature. Now, in this lucid and accessibly written book, Philip Ball applies state-of-the-art scientific understanding from the fields of biology, chemistry, geology, physics, and mathematics to these ancient mysteries, revealing how nature's seemingly complex patterns originate in simple physical laws.
Tracing the history of scientific thought about natural patterns, Ball shows how...
| 
| Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity (Helix Books)
by John Holland (Author)
al readers how Complexity--the watershed science agenda for at least the nexttwo decades--is affecting our lives.
|
|
|
|
