A Brief History of Organic Life

The Cosmic Context (A Brief History of Organic Life)

The atom is a pattern, and the molecule is a pattern, and the crystal is a pattern; but the stone, although it is made up of these patterns, is just a mere confusion. . . . —Aldous Huxley One of the most influential science books of the twentieth century was an ultra-slim volume, written by […]

The Rise of Biological Non-Zero-Sumness (A Brief History of Organic Life)

A beehive is a collaborative enterprise on far more levels than first appears. —Matt Ridley You may be under the impression that you have a single set of genes, arrayed along chromosomes in the nucleus of each cell. A common misconception. The nucleus is just one of many little subcellular bodies called organelles. And one […]

Why Life Is So Complex (A Brief History of Organic Life)

While we readily admit that the first organisms were bacteria-like and that the most complex organism of all is our own kind, it is considered bad form to take this as any kind of progression. . . . [One] is flirting with sin if one says a worm is a lower animal and a vertebrate […]

The Last Adaptation (A Brief History of Organic Life)

As a result of a thousand million years of evolution, the universe is becoming conscious of itself. —Julian Huxley The first hard evidence of culture in the human lineage comes in the form of crude stone tools fashioned more than 2 million year ago. What made our ancestor start using stone tools? The consensus among […]