Life Results

I've been thinking a great deal about life lately, for various reasons.

Someone once told the great Oxford zoologist* Richard Dawkins that in order for the average person to be able to understand the concept of natural selection, he would have to distill it down to something that would fit on a tee-shirt. He thought about it and eventually came up with this wonderfully concise statement.

"Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators"

Think about it. Life is not random, just the raw-material mutations are. The various processes are driven by very powerful streams of non-random environmental selection. Non-random. No biologist ever said it was random, but that seems to be a big misconception over here on this side of the Atlantic for some reason. And that reason is partially that our education system completely ignores or, worse yet, distorts modern biology for political reasons.

Oh well, it's not important.

It's only about the understanding of life.

At least the rest of the world gets it.

We can read about all the cool medical discoveries from them, right? They won't mind sharing.

Will they?


* A "zoologist" is called a "biologist" here in the states.

P.S. Professor Dawkins is a genius in the fullest sense of the term. If you want to understand what science really knows about this subject, read his landmark books "The Selfish Gene", and "The Blind Watchmaker".

I assure you they will change your view of this thing we call life.