Rating: 
Summary: Confused Attempt at a Theory of Everything
Review: The title of this review, and my low rating, are not meant as a condemnation Murray Gell-Mann as a scientist or visionary thinker. The problem is that this book has little focus and apparently does not know what it wants to be. It's difficult to tell if Gell-Mann is writing a biography of his own personal research history, or if he's attempting to draw large conclusions from his highly varied works. Gell-Mann is truly a polymath and has drawn insights into all kinds of disparate fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, linguistics, and psychology. All of these areas and more receive coverage in this book, and Gell-Mann tries to draw them all together into a unified theory of everything, using his most recent research into complex adaptive systems as a framework. Hence the sub-title of this book, as an attempt is made to draw together the very simple (quark) and the very complex (jaguar). Unfortunately, this grand connection fails to materialize as the book drags on, and the proposition of complex adaptive systems as the missing link is ultimately unconvincing. I'm also suspicious of all of Gell-Mann's reminiscing about his colleagues and exploits at Cal-Tech and the Santa Fe Institute. These almost seem like part of a fund-raising drive for these institutions. Gell-Mann would have been better served just putting together a compendium of his scientific achievements, without the attempt to tie them all together, which he doesn't quite accomplish here.
Rating:
Summary: Too scattershot and vague
Review: The tour from the infinitesimal and lonely world of the fundamental particle to the fully integrated and interdependent world that we live in as presented by Gell-Mann seems lacking in details in the most important parts. Also, the tenor of the book changes as his interest in certain topics like particle physics (for which he won the Nobel Prize) and environmental conservation increase and his interest in topics like mathematics, artificial intelligence and schemata dwindle.His soft approach to this presentation of topics is refreshing and very informative. For the topics that he has an especially keen interest in, the book is a pleasure to read. At times, I felt that the topic of particle physics was finally presented in a way that was understandable to me. The final chapters where Gell-Mann becomes excited about conservation is where he seems to go off the deep end, though. Contrasted with the previous chapters that were based on quantifiable data and hard evidence, Gell-Mann treats the reader to a lot of vague hand waving and allusions to the mysterious knowledge of native people. His generalizations are a little overboard (as are mine, I suppose) and his conclusions are not based on clear logic but rather guessing games. It would not be right to critique his stance on protecting the environment or his "let them weave baskets to earn income" view of lesser developed countries here in a short book review, but it can be said that if he wanted to discuss this topic, he could have at least provided evidence of the vast wasting and extermination of the environment and indigenous cultures that he wishes to stop. Overall, this is a book that starts the discussion about our future. It contains a lot of physics (don't be put off! It's very clear and easy to understand), but the main thrust of the book is that we are all in this together and it is our responsibility to work together which is in our best interest. It's not hard to fault him on this. If he had stuck to that topic and laid out some supports, this would have been an excellent book. I can't recommend buying it though. Go to the sources: Sierra Club, Paul Erlich, the UN. That is where you will find better explanations of his views, I believe.
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