Sublime

But a cell is not merely a gene-decoding machine. Having unpacked the code by synthesizing a select set of proteins that is encoded in its genes, a cell becomes an integrating machine. A cell uses this set of proteins (and the biochemical products made by proteins) in conjunction with one another to start coordinating its function, its behavior (mo

We know that life’s remarkable robustness, in large part, is dependent on variation; systems that suppress or lose their diversity are prone to collapse.

Replication in biology is ultimately about the ability of DNA to make a copy of itself during cell division. This is how we start life, and it is a process that continues in some of our cells until our death.

ACTIVE CURIOSITY.

Yes, there are effectively certain truths of science. General Relativity may be overturned by some future physics—albeit not in any way that predicts the Sun will orbit Jupiter; the new theory must steal the successful predictions of the old theory, not contradict them. But evolutionary theory takes place on a higher level of organization than atom

The first bottom-up attempt to untangle the riddle of design was to search for a profound mathematical truth at the kernel of existence. The second line of attack, multiverse cosmology, also relied on timeless metalaws, but augmented with the anthropic selection of a habitable island universe.

In the century and a half since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, we still are stymied by the complexity of the biosphere, and, just as with our financial systems, our efforts to intervene have often led to confounding results.