The Science and Philosophy of the "Thermodynamic School" of Evolution
This chapter was written by Roderick C. Dewar and Amos Maritan and published in 2014. The abstract states what follows. Maximum entropy production (MaxEP) is a conjectured selection criterion for the stationary states of non-equilibrium systems. In the absence of a firm theoretical basis, MaxEP has largely been applied in an ad hoc manner. Consequently…
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This paper was written by E. D. Schneider and J. J. Kay and published in 1994. The title provides a clear view of the focus of the paper. One of the many interesting things about this paper is that the authors make this case regarding life and the second law without utilizing the concept of…
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This paper was written by Luis Bettencourt and published in 2024. It is part of an elaborate project of the Sante Fe Institute to chart the course of the development of complex-systems science by discussing eighty-nine revolutionary works originally published between 1922 and 2000. Bettencourt’s paper begins volume one by focuses on the papers that…
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This paper was written by S. N. Salthe and published in 2010. It is one of the few papers that explains and compares the maximum power principle and the maximum entropy production principle. Salthe makes a number of interesting and important points; for example, he suggests that these principles can explain the development of both abiotic…
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This book was edited by Charles A. S. Hall and published in 1995. It is a synthesis of the creative genius of Howard Thomas Odum as seen through his own words and those of his students, many of whom are now applying his ideas to the world in diverse ways. Offering the holistic, system-oriented thinking…
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This website seeks to provide the resources necessary to overcome some of the challenges associated with the extraordinary growth of scientific and philosophical knowledge in an important area of interdisciplinary research. According to Derek de Solla Price (1975), the father of scientometrics (i.e., the science of studying science), 90% of all the scientists that have ever lived are…
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This paper was written by James Brown, Charles A. S. Hall, and Richard Sibly and published in 2018. This is one of the first papers that describes the equal fitness paradigm (EFP), which explains how energy is used by organisms in accordance with biological scaling relations to produce surviving offspring. The authors provide evidence that…
This paper was written by Charles A. S. Hall and Timothy McWhirter and published in 2023. It provides a review of the development and use of the maximum power principle in evolutionary theory, ecology, and economics. It includes a discussion of how Alfred Lotka and H. T. Odum both described the maximum power principle applying…
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This paper was written by Huw Price and published in 2002. In it Price uncovers a unique approach to resolving a fundamental problem: Why are the laws of mechanics symmetric with respect to time and the fundamental laws of thermodynamics asymmetric with respect to time? This difference is fundamental to the irreversible processes investigated in…
This book was written by Timothy McWhirter and published in 2025. It examines the relation between the maximum power principle developed by Alfred Lotka and H. T. Odum and the concept of the will to power developed by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It discusses the work of the scientists and philosophers that influenced the…