Not long before he died, I heard an interview with Charles Bowden in which he praised the work of Howard T. Odum for “changing his life” and as a result the way he thought about a vast number of subjects. However he also mentioned that Odum’s ideas were so far (beyond, above, outside of) conventional thinking that he had – according to Bowden – become something of “a pariah” to many in the Academy. Such is often the way with the truly brilliant among us – rock the intellectual boat too much and they throw you out of it.
I mention all of this as it was what crossed my mind when I opened the package that arrived last week from Oxford University Press carrying a copy of Stuart A. Kauffman’s new book Humanity in a Creative Universe. Unable to get even the first inkling of what the book was about after reading the enclosed material and jacket, I nearly put it in the “don’t bother” pile when the recollection of Bowden’s words about Odum suddenly came to mind.
Sometimes the most profound ideas don’t fit neatly into categories or give themselves over to brief summation. I’ll let you know more of what I discover in Kauffman’s new book once I finish reading it.
