Argues that while natural selection is important in explaining the biological and ecological complexity around us, it is itself underpinned by self-organisation; that in crafting the living world, selection has always acted upon those systems that exhibit spontaneous order. This underlying order, further honed by Darwinian selection, augurs a new place for us in the universe, and invests our lives with a sense of purpose that has been weakened or denied by most of modern science.
`...will become a landmark and a classic as we grope towards a more comprehensive and satisfying theory of evolution.' Stephen Jay Gould.