Ecology, the Ascendent Perspective provides an entirely fresh view of the origins of organization in living systems. Writing for theoretical ecologists, biologists, and philosophers of science, Robert Ulanowicz mounts a powerful challenge to prevailing mechanistic paradigms of ecology. Ecology, Ulanowicz argues, needs a more robust central paradigm, and this book presents one derived from current work in information theory, ecosystem energetics, and complexity theory; the result is a theoretical and empirical tool kit better able to measure the developmental status of any living community. Ranging widely to explore critical issues in the history of science - order, causality, progress, laws - the book sets forth a coherent theoretical framework for ecology. A challenge to existing Newtonian and Darwinian paradigms, Ecology, the Ascendent Perspective demonstrates that a theoretically reshaped science of ecology, better suited to portraying the dynamics of the natural world, can be a more effective means of ensuring its health.