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Life Finds A Way Paperback

by Andreas Wagner (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 28 ratings
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  1. Language
    English
  2. Dimensions
    5.08 x 0.91 x 7.8 inches
  3. ISBN-10
    1786077736
  4. ISBN-13
    978-1786077738
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Product details

  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1786077736
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1786077738
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.08 x 0.91 x 7.8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 28 ratings

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Andreas Wagner

Andreas Wagner

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
28 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

James
5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended
Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2019
Verified Purchase
Interesting read
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Mike
4.0 out of 5 stars Accessible understanding of genetic landscapes
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2024
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Enjoyed the book, particularly the explanation of why it’s so hard to let go of successful adaptations. It’s like being stuck on a peak you can’t get down from.
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kelsey
5.0 out of 5 stars Wide-ranging, knowledge-packed
Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2019
This year, I’ve begun diving into nonfiction and science books more than ever, thanks, in part, to my husband’s interest in reading about animals and trees, which hooked me. Dr. Andreas Wagner’s "Life Finds a Way: What Evolution Teaches Us About Creativity" has a stunning cover — a mosaic of brilliantly-colored moths. I sat down in a chair and was engulfed in the profund insights Dr. Wagner offers. If you don’t get any farther than this first paragraph, let me say that I highly recommend reading this book.

At first, I thought this book was a “how-to” book — how to be creative, how to tap into creativity, how to use ideas from evolution to be more creatively productive. Instead, this book delves into how everything living has evolved in a time-old ballet of creativity, innovation, and trial-and-error. I learned so much about biology, genetics, atoms, and how our minds work, and I finished the entire book (over 200 pages of heavily scientific text) in five days.

Dr. Wagner does a fantastic job of explaining complicated scholarly ideas, and in the last section, he applies the principles and thinking he’s detailed to education, immigration, technological advancement, and play, asserting that, more or less, we’re doing it all wrong. Rather than rewarding competition, conformity, and practicality, Dr. Wagner insists that we’ll be a more innovative, kinder world by encouraging mistakes, collaboration, and geographic mobility. His well-argued ideas remind me of Ms. Frizzle’s wise adage: “Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!”
4 people found this helpful
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Whynotthis
4.0 out of 5 stars Profession Specific Read That Requires A Comprehensive Read
Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2019
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Glad that I took the authors advice to continue to read even if I didn't completely understand all the profession specific technicalities. At the end of the book, it started to "click" and met my expectations, illustrating an intriguing view of creativity in the natural world and otherwise.
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durangok
2.0 out of 5 stars Poor title and jacket cover for a book with great content
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2019
The overview or perspective Wagner provides on Darwinian evolution and genetic drift is stimulating and many of the examples and asides are humorous, enlightening and enjoyable. Yet putting the word "Creativity" at the center of book was a mistake. Creativity has various entrenched meaning for many of us and this variety is not adequately acknowledged. At the very least the title, jacket cover and description of the book confuse self-help books, such as how to be happier, or more successful in business, or a better artist, with creativity in the biological, Darwinian sense. Of course they are related, but so are quantum theory and creativity. I think Wagner has the knowledge and ability to write a GREAT book--but in writing Life Finds a Way he failed to define his audience. His editor and publisher failed him, or he failed to listen.
2 people found this helpful
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lori kuchenbeisser
1.0 out of 5 stars How did he come up with the title of the book?
Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2019
He used a quote from the 1993 movie:"Jurrasic Park " as the title of his book and didn't even give credit to Michael Crichton.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Sergio
5.0 out of 5 stars The book came in perfect conditions
Reviewed in Germany on November 24, 2023
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Arrived in time and very well packaged.
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Bilal A. Hasan
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating observations on nature’s approach to optimization.
Reviewed in Canada on May 8, 2020
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This is a book about the strategies observed in nature to find optimum solutions to problems in high-dimensional spaces. For readers with background in optimization – mathematics, computer science, engineering – the discussion will be easy to understand; and I suspect those without any background in optimization may struggle to visualize the n-dimensional “landscape” that the author refers to frequently.

Andreas starts off with the discussion about how life finds optimum solutions to challenges faced in their particular environments, noting that while natural selection will always aim to find a locally optimal solution, it is the drift in the genotype that allows exploration of the greater n-dimensional landscape to potentially find better opima or even the global optimum. The discussion is enlightening. He carries over the discussion to how complex optimization problems are solved in nature outside of life, specifically in molecular structures, and he informs us that, for example, the carbon Bucky ball structure results when carbon atoms are excited to very high-temperatures and then cooled slowly, allowing them to settle in a state that is more optimal. He makes similar observations in how snowflakes are formed. Then he turns his attention to how our brains solve complex problems, and observes the same pattern, which, in this case, is referred to as divergent thinking followed by convergent thinking, etc. Fascinating parallels!

Andreas concludes the book with a discussion of how education should be approached to allow creativity to prosper. He observes that the Western education system has served that purpose better than, for example, the Chinese or the Japanese education systems, but that the Western education system has been deteriorating also in this respect. He also talks about the impact on creativity of how different societies look at failure.

This is a thought-provoking book, and it is beautifully composed and presented. At the conclusion of it, I was left with two questions: One, while for some problems the goal of the optimization process is easy to comprehend, not so for others; in the case of a painting, for example, how does our mind decide that this outcome is more optimal than that? Second, while incubating creativity is certainly a desirable goal, there certainly is also the need to incubate discipline: Someone has to build and maintain infrastructures, organize information, keep the peace, etc.
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Dr. Somesh Gupta
5.0 out of 5 stars A good read for those interested in understanding evolution
Reviewed in India on October 8, 2019
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The book provides a different view of evolution, the landscape view. And then goes on to apply the same principles in different areas of life and creativity. It takes some time to read initially but once we go through the substantial contents it interests us. The book ends noting thta the society a d cultures should be more tolerant and forgivibg to failures, as creativity is a high reward high risk venture. The book is quite readable and will interest those who have keen interest in understanding the modern concepts of evolution.
One person found this helpful
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