Stuart Kauffman

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Stuart Kauffman in April 2010.

Stuart Alan Kauffman (born September 28, 1939 ) is an American theoretical biologist who teaches biology, physics and astronomy at the University of Calgary (Canada) and is also an associate professor of philosophy. He is best known for his thesis that self-organization is at least as important a factor as Darwinian selection in the development of the complexity of biological systems and organisms .

Life

Kauffman was initially trained as a medical doctor , is a theoretical biologist , and researcher in the field of complex systems .

After studying at Dartmouth College and Oxford University , Kauffmann received his doctorate in medicine from the University of California, San Francisco in 1968 . After a short medical career, Kauffman turned to developmental biology . He worked at the University of Chicago and was Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania from 1975 to 1995 .

Kauffman became known for his work at the Santa Fe Institute , which deals with the study of complex systems, and for his work with models in different areas of biology . These models included autocatalytic networks in research into chemical evolution , gene regulatory networks in developmental biology, and fitness landscapes in evolutionary biology . In 1996, Kauffman founded the BIOS Group, a company that applies complex systems theory to solve business problems. In 2004 Kauffman went to the Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics at the University of Calgary (Canada). In 2009 he taught at the Technical University of Tampere (Finland) . Since 2010 he has worked at the Complex Systems Center at the University of Vermont .

Kauffman is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada . In 1987 he was a MacArthur Fellow .

Writings by Stuart Kauffman

  • Antichaos and Adaptation , Scientific American, August 1991.
    (German: Leben am Rande des Chaos , Spektrum der Wissenschaft, October 1991.
    Also in: Development and Genes, Series Understandable Research, Spektrum Akademie Verlag 1992, ISBN 3860250280 )
  • The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution , Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0195079515 .
  • At Home in the Universe , Oxford University Press, 1995, ISBN 0195111303 .
    (German: Der Öltropfen im Wasser , Piper 1996, ISBN 3492035493 ).
  • Investigations , Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0195121058 .
  • Prolegomenon to a General Biology , in: William A. Dembski, Michael Ruse, (eds.), Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA , Cambridge University Press, 2004, ISBN 0521829496 .
  • Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion . Basic Books 2008. ISBN 0465003001 ( English video ( Memento from August 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) to introduce)
  • Humanity in a Creative Universe , Oxford University Press, 2016.
  • A World Beyond Physics - The Emergence and Evolution of Life , Oxford University Press, 2019.

About Stuart Kauffman

  • Roger Lewin, The Complexity Theory , Hoffmann & Campe, Hamburg 1993
  • M. Mitchell Waldrop, Islands in Chaos: The Exploration of Complex Systems , Rowohlt, Berlin 1996

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stuart Kauffman and Lee Smolin : A Possible Solution For The Problem Of Time In Quantum Cosmology

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kauffman, Stuart
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kauffman, Stuart Alan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American biologist and researcher in the field of complex systems
DATE OF BIRTH September 28, 1939