The Science and Philosophy of the "Thermodynamic School" of Evolution
This paper was written by Charles A. S. Hall and Timothy McWhirter and published in 2023. It provides a review of the development and use of the maximum power principle in evolutionary theory, ecology, and economics. It includes a discussion of how Alfred Lotka and H. T. Odum both described the maximum power principle applying…
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This paper was written by Huw Price and published in 2002. In it Price uncovers a unique approach to resolving a fundamental problem: Why are the laws of mechanics symmetric with respect to time and the fundamental laws of thermodynamics asymmetric with respect to time? This difference is fundamental to the irreversible processes investigated in…
This book was written by Timothy McWhirter and published in 2025. It examines the relation between the maximum power principle developed by Alfred Lotka and H. T. Odum and the concept of the will to power developed by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It discusses the work of the scientists and philosophers that influenced the…
This paper was written by Chams Lahlou and Laurent Truffet and published in 2020. It provides a mathematical proof of the maximum empower principle using an axiomatic basis developed recently by Le Corre and Truffet. The abstract states: “Self-organization is a process where order of a whole system arises out of local interactions between small…
This paper was written by Linjun Li, Hongfang Lu, David R. Tilley, Hai Ren, and Weijun Shen and published in 2012. It is based on a project intended to test the validity of the maximum empower principle in the self-organization of forest ecosystems by applying an ecosystem model to simulate the dynamics of three forest plantations in south China during 1985-2007. The abstract states:…
This short article was written by Mark Brown and published in 2023. Brown did his graduate work at the University of Florida under the guidance of H. T. Odum and is one of the leaders of the International Society for the Advancement of Emergy Research. In this article, he provides a brief overview of the…
This paper was written by Enrico Sciubba and published in 2011. It critically analyzes the maximum power principle, focusing primarily on Alfred Lotka’s formulation of the principle. Sciubba concludes that the weakness of Lotka’s view of evolution appears to be his insistence on the validity of a maximum principle. Sciubba suggests that contemporary scientists are…
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This book was written by Richard Joyce and published in 2024. It is the third in a series of books Joyce has written that explore the relation between morality and evolution. The promotional materials provided for this book state the following. We make moral judgments about all sorts of things, both mundane and momentous. But…
This book was written by Richard Joyce and published in 2007. This is the second book in a series Joyce has written that explore the relation between morality and evolution. The promotional materials provided for this book provide the following description. Moral thinking pervades our practical lives, but where did this way of thinking come…
This book was written by Richard Joyce and published in 2007. Joyce is an International Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sydney that has written a series of books that focus on investigating the relation between morality and evolution. In this book, Joyce argues that moral discourse is hopelessly flawed. At the heart of…