Even after 150 years, Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is irresistibly compelling. But how can this idea—in which competition prevails—be consistent with all that we know about the thoroughly cooperative nature of life at the genetic and cellular level? This book reconciles these discrepancies.

Assembling a set of general principles, authors Kenneth Weiss and Anne Buchanan build a comprehensive, unified theory that applies on the evolutionary time scale but also on the developmental and ecological scales where daily life is lived, and cells, organisms, and species interact. They present this story through a diversity of examples spanning the fundamental challenges that organisms have faced throughout the history of life. This shows that even very complex traits can be constructed simply, based on these principles. Although relentless competitive natural selection is widely assumed to be the primary mover of evolutionary change, The Mermaid’s Tale shows how life more generally works on the basis of cooperation. The book reveals that the focus on competition and cooperation is largely an artifact of the compression of time—a distortion that dissolves when the nature and origins of adapted life are viewed primarily from developmental and evolutionary time scales.

PART ONE    The Time of Life: A Broadening Perspective
I  Life as History  3
z  Opening the Pentagon   8
3  Principles of Life  i9
4  Inheritance with Memory   42
5 Walking down Memory Lane      68
PART TWO    The Logic of Life: Complexity Made Simply  87
6  Cells as Cytospecies  89
7  Life on the Devo Scale: Cytospeciation and the Logic
of Development  i
8  Life on the Eco Scale: Directed Change from a
Threatening, Unpredictable World  138
9  Life on the Eco Scale: Making Sense
of Complexity   155
PART THREE    The Consistency of Life: EcoDevoEvo   I93
o1 Life on the Evo Scale: Form Emerges
in Many Ways    195