Modularity - Understanding the Development and Evolution of Natural Complex Systems (Paperback)

Experts from diverse fields, including artificial life, cognitive science, economics, developmental and evolutionary biology, and the arts, discuss modularity. Modularity-the attempt to understand systems as integrations of partially independent and interacting units-is today a dominant theme in the life sciences, cognitive science, and computer science. The concept goes back at least implicitly to the Scientific (or Copernican) Revolution, and can be found behind later theories of phrenology, physiology, and genetics; moreover, art, engineering, and mathematics rely on modular design principles. This collection broadens the scientific discussion of modularity by bringing together experts from a variety of disciplines, including artificial life, cognitive science, economics, evolutionary computation, developmental and evolutionary biology, linguistics, mathematics, morphology, paleontology, physics, theoretical chemistry, philosophy, and the arts. The contributors debate and compare the uses of modularity, discussing the different disciplinary contexts of "modular thinking" in general (including hierarchical organization, near-decomposability, quasi-independence, and recursion) or of more specialized concepts (including character complex, gene family, encapsulation, and mosaic evolution); what modules are, why and how they develop and evolve, and the implication for the research agenda in the disciplines involved; and how to bring about useful cross-disciplinary knowledge transfer on the topic. The book includes a foreword by the late Herbert A. Simon addressing the role of near-decomposability in understanding complex systems.

General

Imprint:	MIT Press
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology
Release date:	August 2009
First published:	2009
Editors:	Werner Callebaut • Diego Rasskin-Gutman
Foreword by:	Herbert A. Simon
Dimensions:	229 x 178 x 24mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	472
ISBN-13:	978-0-262-51326-5
Categories:	Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Developmental biology Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Life sciences: general issues > Evolution
LSN:	0-262-51326-9
Barcode:	9780262513265

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