Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life | 
 enlarge | Author: Martin A. Nowak
Publisher: Belknap Press
Category: Book
List Price: $39.95
Buy New: $28.00
You Save: $11.95 (30%)
New (22) Used (10) from $28.00
Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 21661
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.5
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.7 x 1.4
ISBN: 0674023382
Dewey Decimal Number: 576.8015118
EAN: 9780674023383
Publication Date: September 29, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
At a time of unprecedented expansion in the life sciences, evolution is the one theory that transcends all of biology. Any observation of a living system must ultimately be interpreted in the context of its evolution. Evolutionary change is the consequence of mutation and natural selection, which are two concepts that can be described by mathematical equations.Evolutionary Dynamics is concerned with these equations of life. In this book, Martin Nowak draws on the languages of biology and mathematics to outline the mathematical principles according to which life evolves. His work introduces readers to the powerful yet simple laws that govern the evolution of living systems, no matter how complicated they might seem. Evolution has become a mathematical theory, Nowak suggests, and any idea of an evolutionary process or mechanism should be studied in the context of the mathematical equations of evolutionary dynamics. His book presents a range of analytical tools that can be used to this end: fitness landscapes, mutation matrices, genomic sequence space, random drift, quasispecies, replicators, the Prisoner's Dilemma, games in finite and infinite populations, evolutionary graph theory, games on grids, evolutionary kaleidoscopes, fractals, and spatial chaos. Nowak then shows how evolutionary dynamics applies to critical real-world problems, including the progression of viral diseases such as AIDS, the virulence of infectious agents, the unpredictable mutations that lead to cancer, the evolution of altruism, and even the evolution of human language. His book makes a clear and compelling case for understanding every living system--and everything that arises as a consequence of living systems--in terms of evolutionary dynamics. (20071201)
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
wonderful life October 13, 2006
Dr. Karl Sigmund
61 out of 65 found this review helpful
This is a remarkable book, absolutely original, containing a lot of material which has never before appeared in book form. It is written in a very accessible style, and leads almost effortlessly from first principles to state-of-the-art research.
The book takes an eagle's view on evolution, covering an vast range of topics from molecules to man. It emphasises analytical methods and presents a large canvas of superbly elegant mathematical models.
The author has chosen a very personal, highly idiosyncratic sample of subjects of amazing diversity, basically because he feels excited about them: and this excitement shows through, and makes the book very engaging, a positively bracing experience. On all of the topics, the author has contributed substantially, and the feel to get it `straight from the horse's mouth' is one of the great assets of the book. I believe that it will be a splendid hit with students, and regret that I did not have anything like that when I was young.
The style of the book is lucid and vigorous, with short, clear sentences, occasionally in staccato style. The mathematics is reduced to the bare minimum. It is incredible how much mileage the author can get out of it. The illustrations play an important role, and are well devised.
The chapters are short, and they address an amazing array of topics, ranging from molecular evolution to evolutionary games, from HIV to cancer, and from cooperation to language. In spite of their different subjects, they are homogenous: first comes a breezy introduction to the biological (or chemical, or linguistic) facts, then a simple model, then an analysis, without heavy machinery, usually leading up to some remarkable results which could not be obtained without mathematics, then a summary in a few short statements and finally an extensive list of references, including both the classics and the very newest results in the field. The fact that in each case, a few pages suffice to start from scratch and lead to the cutting edge of present-day research is quite remarkable.
The book will certainly have a big impact, and raise a lot of follow-up work. There is hardly a better recipe for young PhDs than to pick one of the chapters and start doing their own research. But in addition, `the whole is more than the sum of its parts'. I usually hate this slogan but here it holds in a spectacular way. By simply putting together the different applications of simple models in so spectacularly diverse fields, Nowak's book promotes a radical `hands-on'-approach to evolution which, I am sure, will have seminal repercussions.
A dazzling book November 22, 2006
N. Beale (London, England)
22 out of 27 found this review helpful
This is, quite simply, a dazzling book. Nowak manages to take very deep mathematical ideas that are on the cutting edge of science and make them fun and pretty rigorous at the same time. The review in Nature said "It should be on the shelf of anyone who has, or thinks they might have, an interest in theoretical biology" and I completely agree. The section on HIV, explaining mathematically why there is a long delay between infection and the disease, and how this proposal in 1990 correctly predicted several biolgical facts which were subseqently discovered (but not mentioning execpt in the notes, that this was his work) is truly exceptional. We are moving beyond the "Just So stories" phase of evolution (such as wooly rhetoric about "Selfish Genes") to real, mathematically rigorous, science.
Excellent and Approachable Survey May 23, 2007
Marc Harper
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
This book is an accessible introduction to the mathematics of evolution and results in the field of evolutionary dynamics with a heavy emphasis on applications including the immune system, virulence, AIDS, and even the evolution of language. Many of the ideas are from fairly recent papers and results in mathematical biology, particularly the sections regarding the evolution of universal grammar and in the emerging field of evolutionary graph theory, which adds population structure to the mathematical analysis. (This is a now necessary generalization of evolutionary game theory, which assumes uniform population structure.) As noted above, this is the first book to present many of these ideas outside of scientific and mathematical journals.
Although the mathematical content is significant, Nowak diligently explains the implications of the mathematics in the text of the book, widening the potential audience of the book dramatically. Simply put, this book is filled with delicious evolutionary content, backed up with mathematical rigor for the interested reader, but you need not have a degree in mathematics in order to understand much of the material.
Highly recommended for those truly interested in evolution.
The Marriage of Mathematics and Evolution January 9, 2007
G. Serjak (Tyler, TX)
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
Excellent book for the mathematically and evolutionarily minded. However, not for general reading unless you are doing graduate work in either mathematics or evolutionary biology. Just excellent survey.
A must for anybody interested in evolution May 31, 2008
PST (Eislingen Deutschland)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The author picks a variety of sunjects related to evolution (HIV, cancer, language....), and mathematically shows, why it has to be that way!
The mathematics involved is simple (I am an engineer, and I had absolutely no problems understanding the math), yet rigorous enough.
In my opinion, mathematics is not necessary to understand the principles of Darwin's Great Theory (unlike Quantum Theory and Relativity Theory, where without math, you are lost), it greatly helps to make it unassailable.
I recommend this book to anybody interested in the Theory of Evolution, who is not totally afraid of mathematics.
|
|
|
