JOLLY DAYS

Chaos and Evolution

From an article by Timothy Ferris about complexity theory and evolution:

Much of the excitement about complexity theory has to do with the view that living systems dwell “on the edge of chaos,” which is to say that they retain a degree of order while flirting with chaotic nonlinearity.

The system requires enough order to preserve some continuity, yet enough disorder to jolt species out of fitness wells from time to time, forcing them to innovate or perish…