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It is remarkable that nearly every scientist in genetics research is also engaged in the commerce of biotechnology. There are no detached observers. Everybody has a stake.
Michael Crichton • Jurassic Park: A Novel
a supposed designer of our biosphere will seem not only morally deficient, but intellectually unremarkable.
David Deutsch • The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
not very useful, nor correct from an epistemic point of view. It applies to populations (Darwinian), and is completely silent if you consider a single living organism at a time
Pier Luigi Luisi • The Emergence of Life: From Chemical Origins to Synthetic Biology
The most general way of stating the central assertion of the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution is that a population of replicators subject to variation (for instance by imperfect copying) will be taken over by those variants that are better than their rivals at causing themselves to be replicated.
David Deutsch • The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
In order to make the case for evolution by natural selection, it was essential to establish that there was sufficient within-species heritable variability: