"The metaphor of the adaptive landscape - that evolution via the process of natural selection can be visualized as a journey across adaptive hills and valleys, mountains and ravines - permeates both evolutionary biology and the philosophy of science. The focus of this book is to demonstrate to the reader that the adaptive landscape concept can be put into actual analytical practice through the usage of theoretical morphospaces - geometric spaces of both existent and nonexistent biological form - and to demonstrate the power of the adaptive landscape concept in understanding the process of evolution."--BOOK JACKET.