Force of Nature

Most of us remember learning about natural selection back in school and have a sense of some of its everyday implications, like the risks of overusing antibiotics. Yet, as professor of law and biology Owen D. Jones shows, there are still many things that most of us fail to appreciate about evolution—including just how useful it can be to understand. In Force of Nature, Jones explores how we misunderstand and neglect natural selection to our detriment, both missing opportunities to better achieve our goals and, sometimes, even imperiling lives. Through vivid and surprising examples ranging from medicine, psychology, and AI to economics, engineering, and beyond, we see how a finer grasp of natural selection can help open new horizons in cancer treatment and space exploration; create faster machines and better robots; design more effective, just laws; and more. Enlightening and inspiring, Force of Nature shows how, properly understood, evolution may be even more powerful than we may think.