Peter Corning is currently the Director of the Institute for the Study of Complex Systems in Seattle, Washington.  He was also a one-time science writer at Newsweek and a professor for many years in the Human Biology Program at Stanford University, along with holding a research appointment in Stanford’s Behavior Genetics Laboratory.  In addition to some 200 professional papers, he has published six previous books, including The Synergism Hypothesis: A Theory of Progressive Evolution, New York: McGraw-Hill 1983; Nature's Magic: Synergy in Evolution and the Fate of Humankind, New York: Cambridge University Press 2003; Holistic Darwinism: Synergy, Cybernetics, and the Bioeconomics of Evolution, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2005; and The Fair Society: The Science of Human Nature and the Pursuit of Social Justice, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2011.