Life Finds a Way

April 8, 2019
In this intricate but accessible work, evolutionary biologist Wagner draws a fascinating analogy between how nature innovates to optimize itself and how human creativity works. He introduces a conceptual tool from his discipline, the “adaptive landscape,” a graphic resembling a “topographic map of a mountain range,” which organisms “climb” by evolving. Strict natural selection can allow one to reach the nearest peak—a beneficial characteristic—but doesn’t tolerate backward steps, making other, possibly higher peaks inaccessible. However, other climbing strategies—recombination through alternative splicing of DNA and through sexual reproduction—allow more landscape to be traversed. Wagner then moves the model to algorithmic problem solving, describing “genetic algorithms” that use multiple starting points and random mutations. Applying his model to creativity, he shows how mental landscapes are built similarly, by exploring different realms of knowledge and making “unusual combinations of experience and expertise” akin to DNA recombination. A brief foray into cultural implications—which recommends the cultivation of diversity and autonomy instead of hypercompetition in education and academia—is comparatively ill-developed and out of place. Nonetheless, this enjoyable popular science book, easy to follow without ever becoming oversimplistic, provides an intriguing new perspective on the mechanisms of innovation, whether molecule or symphony. Agent: Lisa Adams, Garamond Agency.

April 15, 2019
A thoughtful search for parallels between biological and human innovation. No slouch at addressing big ideas, Wagner (Evolutionary Biology/Univ. of Zurich) took the first step in Arrival of the Fittest: Solving Evolution's Greatest Puzzle (2014), which explained life's spectacular transformation over 4 billion years since its origin. Summarizing that earlier book, he emphasizes that "every one of the millions of species alive today is the most recent link in a nearly endless chain of creative achievement that goes back all the way to life's origin. Every organism is the product of countless innovations, from the molecular machines inside its cells to the physical architecture of its body." Most readers associate evolution with Darwinian natural selection, but Wagner points out its limited creative capacity. In natural selection, a better adapted organism produces more offspring. This preserves good traits and discards bad ones until it reaches a peak of fitness. This process works perfectly in an "adaptive landscape" with a single peak, but it fails when there are many--and higher--peaks. Conquering the highest--true creativity--requires descending into a valley and trying again. Natural selection never chooses the worse over the better, so it can't descend. Wagner devotes most of his book to the 20th-century discovery of the sources of true biological creativity: genetic drift, recombination, and other processes that inject diversity into the evolutionary process. His final section on human creativity contains less hard science but plenty of imagination. The human parallel with natural selection is laissez faire competition, which is efficient but equally intolerant of trial and error. Far more productive are systems that don't penalize failure but encourage play, experimentation, dreaming, and diverse points of view. In this vein, American schools fare poorly, but Asian schools are worse. Combining evolutionary biology with psychology to explain creativity is a stretch, but Wagner makes an ingenious case.

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Thankfully, narrator Alex Hyde-White adopts the tone of a storyteller in delivering this complex work. The author explores human innovation through the lens of evolutionary science, introducing the concept of a "fitness landscape" and "landscape thinking" to explain efficient and likely pathways of creativity and adaptation. His ideas are contrasted with dominant Darwinian assumptions. Hyde-White takes his time with the wide-ranging examples, allowing listeners to visualize the intricate theories and outcomes being described. His deep voice is clear and confident as he modulates his tone while describing scientific and mathematical concepts ranging from molecular biology to genetic drift and algorithms. An unconventional look at problem-solving for listeners interested in expanding their thinking on the science of creativity. A.S. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

May 1, 2019
In a much-touted 2010 IBM survey, more than 1,500 CEOs cited creativity as the single most important factor in business success. Fostering creativity, however, is a difficult task in our competition-driven education and business systems. Wagner, an evolutionary biologist who describes his work as observing microbes to determine how they evolve to surmount seemingly insurmountable challenges, posits that the best way to encourage creativity is through a landscape model. That is, not to automatically expect easy ascents straight to the top, but to anticipate detours, low spots, and even side trips over cliffs. He provides multiple examples from nature that mirror how medical breakthroughs, artistic spurts, and technological innovations often come after multiple failures or as unanticipated results of seemingly unrelated experimentation. He argues that society in general needs to allow individuals the time and resources to explore, and to remove any stigma from resulting failures, which will exhort creative play, diversity of interests, and multidisciplinary teamwork. His readable insights provide fresh ways of defining success with implications for business, research, and education.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)