The Benefits of Imperfection
eBook - ePub

The Benefits of Imperfection

Biology, Society, and Beyond

  1. 208 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Benefits of Imperfection

Biology, Society, and Beyond

About this book

The cult of performance leads our society to emphasise the values of success and continuous optimisation in all areas. Slowness, redundancy and randomness are therefore negatively perceived. Olivier Hamant, in his book, reclaims them by his knowledge of biological processes.

What can we learn from life sciences? While some biological mechanisms certainly boast formidable efficiency, recent advances instead highlight the fundamental role of errors, incoherence or slowness in the robustness of living organisms. Should life be considered suboptimal? To what extent could suboptimality become a counter-model to the credo of performance and control in the Anthropocene?

In the face of pessimistic observations and environmental alerts, the author outlines solutions for a future that is viable and reconciled with nature.

Key Features:

  • Solidly documents with a grounding in scientific facts focusing on solutions
  • Explores a pragmatic way towards robustness, moving the debate beyond performance, technolatry or degrowth
  • Responds to eco-anxiety by providing an engaging and viable way forward

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Yes, you can access The Benefits of Imperfection by Olivier Hamant in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biological Sciences & Ecology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
CRC Press
Year
2024
Print ISBN
9781032832203
eBook ISBN
9781040115756

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half Title
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Contents
  6. Acknowledgements
  7. Chapter 1 Preamble, as an Executive Summary
  8. Chapter 2 The Age of Performance
  9. Chapter 3 Which Third Way?
  10. Chapter 4 Suboptimality
  11. Chapter 5 Robustness of Life
  12. Chapter 6 A Counter-Model?
  13. Some Chronological Reference Points
  14. List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
  15. References
  16. Index