The Complexity Paradox The More Answers We Find, the More Questions We Have [Hardcover]

Living systems exhibit a fundamental contradiction: they are highly stable and reliable, yet they have the capacity to adapt to changing environmental conditions. This paradoxical behavior arises from the complexity of life--a high degree of order and cooperation that emerges from relatively simple interactions among cellular components.The Complexity Paradoxproposes inventive, interdisciplinary approaches to maintaining health and managing and preventing disease by considering the totality of human biology, from the cellular level on up to entire populations of individuals. From the perspective of complexity, which acknowledges that there are limits to what we can know, Kenneth L. Mossman opens the door to understanding essential life processes in new and extraordinary ways. By tying together evolution, functional dynamics, and investigations into how the body processes energy and uses genetic information, Mossman's analysis expresses a unified theory of biology that fills a critical niche for future research in biology, medicine, and public health.

Preface
Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 The Complexity Paradox
Chapter 2 Laws to Live By
Chapter 3 Forces of Nature
Chapter 4 Biological Complexity
Chapter 5 A Free and Independent Life
Chapter 6 Altered States
Chapter 7 The Trinity
Chapter 8 The Mother of All Diseases
Chapter 9 Brain Drain
Chapter 10 Desperately Seeking Methuselah
Chapter 11 Emergence Medicine

Notes
Glossary
Selected bibliography
Index

Well written and fascinating,The Complexity Paradoxhas enough specificity to ensure confidence in the conclusions but not so much as to obfuscate the central message of complexity's importance for medicine to a nonspecialist audience. As such, it will intrigue and educate a wide range of scholars, undergraduates, and general readers on the
importance of complexity theory for the future of biology and medicine. --The Qul3.