Evolution: The Grand Synthesis

The vision that lies behind this book is disturbing: we live in a period of major discontinuity in world history, a period marked by an explosion of world population, the loss of traditional values, social destabilization, unemployment, obsolescence of institutions and political systems, and the disappearance of traditional ideologies that in the past have given our behavior its bearings. The author, Ervin Laszlo, is a member of the Club of Rome, which, in recent years, has been a meeting place of intellectuals interested in the "world problematique." Laszlo's strategy for dealing with our dilemma is to understand the natural forces that direct physical processes, biology, and social behavior and, through that understanding, master our destiny. His intention is noble, the task itself may be another matter. This is where evolution enters the picture. In the author's view, an expanded evolutionary theory is the best theory available to organize and synthesize