proposes an approach to evolution that is more in harmony with modern science than Darwinism or neo-Darwinism

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823 - 1913) was one of the late nineteenth century's most potent intellectual forces. His link to Darwin as co-discoverer of the principle of natural selection alone would have secured him a place in history, but he went on to complete work entitling him to recognition as the 'father' of modern biogeographical studies, as a pioneer in the field of astrobiology, and as an important contributor to subjects as far-ranging as glaciology, land reform, anthropology and ethnography, and epidemiology. Beyond this, many are coming to regard Wallace as the pre-eminent field biologist, collector, and naturalist of tropical regions. Add to that the fact that he was a vocal supporter of spiritualism, socialism, and the rights of the ordinary person, and it quickly becomes apparent that Wallace was a man of extraordinary breadth of attention. Yet his work in many of these areas is still not well known, and still less recognized is his relevance to current day research almost 100 years after his death. This rich collection of writings by more than twenty historians and scientists reviews and reflects on the work that made Wallace a famous man in his own time, and a figure of extraordinary influence and continuing interest today.

To most biologists, sociobiology represents the concept of strict Darwinian individual selection married to an analytical application of ecological principles and brought to bear on social behavior in an unusually exciting and productive way. Joining the biologists are a small number of social scientists. But there are radically divergent views as to how the field should be delimited, and sociobiology is one of the most widely discussed fields in biology and anthropology today. The symposium on which this book is based was arranged by a biologist and an anthropologist. The participants, leaders in their fields, ably present contrasting and responsible views on current issues. This is the first collection of essays on sociobiology in which opposing views are aired. It is an exciting, timely book and an important historical document.

Why are some individuals relatively more successful than others in achievement? And why are some countries (or regions), for that matter, relatively more successful than others in development? Contrary to the conventional wisdom held by many, Dr. Baofu argues that the nature-nurture debate is misleading and faulty, since his “transcendent approach” is to show how and why the two are closely intertwined in producing the behavioral differences as often seen in individual human endeavors on the micro scale, and for that matter, in country (or regional) endeavors on the macro one—without, however, committing “the compromise fallacy” as often seen in an in-between alternative. The debate also obscures something more tremendous in the long run, in relation to the emergence of what Dr. Baofu originally proposed as the “post-human” world that humans have never known, when human genes will no longer exist. Human genes have their days numbered.

Are natural resources really so limited that, as Mahatma Gandhi once famously said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed”? (TE 2012) This limiting view of natural resources can be contrasted with an opposing view by John Maynard Keynes, who “summarized Say’s Law as ‘supply creates its own demand’” but then “turned Say’s Law on its head in the 1930s by declaring that demand creates its own supply,” so whenever a demand exists, there will be resources to create the supply. (EN 2012) Contrary to these opposing views (and other ones as will be discussed in the book), natural resources, in relation to both diversity and discontinuity are neither possible or impossible, nor desirable or undesirable to the extent that the respective ideologues on different sides would like us to believe. Needless to say, this challenge to the opposing views of natural resources does not mean that natural resources are unimportant, or that those interdisciplinary fields (related to natural resources) like conservation biology, environmental management, ecological economics, political ecology, environmental ethics, adaptive management, genetic engineering, Malthusianism, and so on are not worth studying. Of course, neither of these extreme views is reasonable. Rather, this book offers an alternative, better way to understand the future of natural resources, especially in the dialectic context of diversity and discontinuity—while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favoring any one of them or integrating them, since they are not necessarily compatible with each other. More specifically, this book offers a new theory (that is, the resilient theory of natural resources) to go beyond the existing approaches in a novel way. If successful, this seminal project is to fundamentally change the way that we think about natural resources in relation to diversity and discontinuity from the combined perspectives of the mind, nature, society, and culture, with enormous implications for the human future and what the author originally called its “post-human” fate.

Through the work of Charles Darwin, a great task was set before science--to progress from opinions about evolution to a science of evolution, and reveal the inner laws and driving forces at work in the development of the organic world. In Thinking beyond Darwin, Ernst-Michael Kranich focuses on a central problem of evolutionary science. He shows us a way, based on Goethe's botanical and zoological investigations, of seeing the coherence and inner dynamics of organisms. Using Goethe's concept of type as a key to vertebrate evolution, Kranich methodically lays the foundation for a science of evolution. He focuses on the central problem of evolutionary science: are there underlying principles that connect the many disparate facts? By applying Goethe's method consistently to evolutionary thinking, Kranich shows that the laws and driving forces of evolution are encompassed by the inner lawfulness of living organisms and that we must participate through formative thinking in the evolutionary processes. Thinking beyond Darwin, makes an important contribution to the development of more adequate concepts of evolution and arrives at clear insights about earlier animal forms and evolutionary laws that could have immense consequences for future evolutionary thinking.

Through the work of Charles Darwin, a great task was set before science--to progress from opinions about evolution to a science of evolution, and reveal the inner laws and driving forces at work in the development of the organic world. In Thinking beyond Darwin, Ernst-Michael Kranich focuses on a central problem of evolutionary science. He shows us a way, based on Goethe's botanical and zoological investigations, of seeing the coherence and inner dynamics of organisms. Using Goethe's concept of type as a key to vertebrate evolution, Kranich methodically lays the foundation for a science of evolution. He focuses on the central problem of evolutionary science: are there underlying principles that connect the many disparate facts? By applying Goethe's method consistently to evolutionary thinking, Kranich shows that the laws and driving forces of evolution are encompassed by the inner lawfulness of living organisms and that we must participate through formative thinking in the evolutionary processes. Thinking beyond Darwin, makes an important contribution to the development of more adequate concepts of evolution and arrives at clear insights about earlier animal forms and evolutionary laws that could have immense consequences for future evolutionary thinking.