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MANY FOREIGN GENES. "Approximately one-sixth of the genes in the tardigrade genome were found to have been acquired through horizontal transfer, a proportion nearly double the proportion of previous known cases of extreme horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in animals. Foreign genes have impacted the composition of the tardigrade genome: supplementing, expanding, and replacing endogenous gene families, including those families implicated in stress tolerance." https://lnkd.in/eRtAbJz View in LinkedIn

TRANSITIONAL MORPHS. Nothing is as it seems to be. We marvel at nature's inventiveness, with good reason. But no living morsel under the sun has been purpose built. All are morphs from previous borrowed inventions, with limitless examples of aeons of tinkering for new purposes. All are morphs in restless transitions, destination unknown, with a thousand blind ends, and a few startling successes. Morphs, both genetically and phenotypically. https://lnkd.in/dxcB7XZ View in LinkedIn

NOT FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES. We always assume that evolution has developed the most highly adapted design for a particular function -- think Darwin's Finches -- and how adapted they are to their particular foods. However, most of evolution seems to have been a series of workarounds from an outmoded design to a new use, rather than a design from first principles. The evolution of the human foot is a case in point. It derived from a quadrupedal and arboreal ancestor, trying to make it suitable for bipedal locomotion. Or, put differently, turning a square into a triangle. View in LinkedIn

BOLT-ON EVOLUTION. If someone presented me with a design for a human foot that looked like the actual human foot, I probably would have thrown them out of my office. Clunky, messy, bolt-on evolution is why the designs from robotics companies look nothing like the human foot: it was not designed from scratch with a single purpose. All about exaptation: the acquisitions of functions for which they were not originally adapted. View in LinkedIn

MINDLESS EVOLUTION. "Natural selection is the simple result of variation, differential reproduction, and heredity — it is mindless and mechanistic. It has no goals; it's not striving to produce "progress" or a balanced ecosystem." http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0_0/evo_32 View in LinkedIn

"EVOLUTION MYTHS: Evolution produces perfectly adapted creatures." https://lnkd.in/dFj4fee View in LinkedIn

QUASI-ADAPTED. "No population or organism is perfectly adapted." http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0_0/evo_32 View in LinkedIn

NON-BENEFICIAL MORPHS. "The process of evolution is limited by a population's existing genetic variance, the physical proximity of alleles, non-beneficial intermediate morphs in a polymorphic population, and non-adaptive evolutionary forces." https://lnkd.in/d3pZ6np View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE is a meditation on the imperfection of nature. While centuries of culture have portrayed an orderly scheme of the hierarchical natural world, driven by the predictability of the heavenly bodies, with a ranked natural world with man at the pinnacle. The idea of "the great chain of being" assumed this ordered natural and spiritual world. But we learn through modern science that this is far from the case. https://lnkd.in/eT8ADEk View in LinkedIn

NEVER FROM SCRATCH. "Natural selection is a driving force in evolution and can generate populations that are adapted to survive and successfully reproduce in their environments. However, natural selection cannot produce the perfect organism. Natural selection can only select on existing variation in the population; it cannot create anything from scratch." https://lnkd.in/d3pZ6np View in LinkedIn