The revolt of the clay: an initial progress report
A “chance” encounter
Earlier this month I was contacted by a reporter writing a piece on the role of chance in evolution. I responded that I didn’t work on that topic, but if he was interested in predictable non-randomness due to biases in variation, then I would be happy to talk. We had a nice chat last Friday.
I’m only working on the role of “chance” in the sense that, in our field, referring to “chance” is a placemarker for the demise of an approach based implicitly on deterministic thinking— evolution proceeds to equilibrium, and everything turns out for the best, driven by selection. This justifies the classic view that “the ultimate source of explanation in biology is the principle of natural selection” (Ayala, 1970). Bruce Levin and colleagues mock this idea hilariously in the following passage from an actual research paper:
To be sure, the ascent and fixation of the earlier-occurring rather than the best-adapted genotypes due to this bottleneck-mutation rate mechanism is a non-equilibrium result. On Equilibrium Day deterministic processes will prevail and the best genotypes will inherit the earth (Levin, Perrot & Walker, 2000)
Wait, I’m still laughing. (more…)