LIFE FINDS A WAY

Sub-titled 'What Evolution Teaches Us About Creativity', the book is an impressively brisk intellectual tour through our glory days of early 20th century evolutionary biology. He cuts to the heart of vital questions such as the notion that genomes are set up to explore in the hope of leaping across the adaptive landscape to new peaks. In Darwin's survival of the fittest, each step must be uphill as life progresses towards an evolutionary peak and there is no turning back. So, what happens when life needs to cross a valley? The world-renowned biologist Andreas Wagner draws on pioneering research to explore life's creative process, and how it bears a striking resemblance to how we humans work. A beguiling symmetry links Picasso struggling through 40 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. Our ability to play, experiment and make mistakes holds an important message for the way we educate our children and run our institutions and societies. Wagner argues that human inventiveness is a reflection not just of human nature but of nature itself. 320pp.