This website seeks to provide a regularly updated list of the research being done on the science and philosophy of the “thermodynamic school” of evolution and a platform for an ongoing discussion of this research. Regarding science, this will include the work on the maximum power principle, the maximum empower principle, the maximum entropy production principle, the equal fitness paradigm, the constructal law, and other principles that are described as guiding the development of natural systems. Regarding philosophy, this will include work on Nietzsche’s concept of the will to power, his critique of morality, and evolutionary approaches to ethics, among other areas.
The mathematician and physical chemist Alfred Lotka suggested in 1922 that human beings appear to be unconsciously fulfilling a natural law: the development of human civilizations appears to be guided by his principle of maximum energy flux, which was eventually renamed by the systems ecologist H. T. Odum the maximum power principle (Lotka, 1922, p. 149). If this is true, it has extraordinary philosophical implications. This website will provide the scientific and philosophical research that enables us to evaluate Lotka’s claim and its philosophical implications. This website also seeks to provide the resources necessary to overcome some of the challenges associated with the extraordinary growth of scientific and philosophical knowledge in an important area of interdisciplinary research.
Timothy McWhirter
Professor of Philosophy
World Languages and Philosophy Department
Montgomery College
timothy.mcwhirter@montgomerycollege.edu
Ethan Mao
Research Assistant
Winston Churchill High School
ethanmao691@gmail.com