Aristotle conceived of the world in terms of teleological “final causes”; Darwin, or so the story goes, erased purpose and […]
125 | David Haig on the Evolution of Meaning from Darwin to Derrida Read More
Erwin Schrödinger’s famous book What Is Life? highlighted the connections between physics, and thermodynamics in particular, and the nature of
120 | Jeremy England on Biology, Thermodynamics, and the Bible Read More
Evolution is a messy business, involving as it does selection pressures, mutations, genetic drift, and the effects of random external
117 | Sean B. Carroll on Randomness and the Course of Evolution Read More
You can’t always get what you want, as a wise person once said. But we do try, even when someone
113 | Cailin O’Connor on Game Theory, Evolution, and the Origins of Unfairness Read More
Not too long ago nobody carried a mobile phone; now almost everybody does. That’s the kind of rate of rapid
112 | Fyodor Urnov on Gene Editing, CRISPR, and Human Engineering Read More
We are living, in case you haven’t noticed, in a world full of bullshit. It’s hard to say whether the
108 | Carl Bergstrom on Information, Disinformation, and Bullshit Read More
Someday, most likely, we will encounter life that is not as we know it. We might find it elsewhere in
106 | Stuart Bartlett on What “Life” Means Read More
I recently saw an estimate that if you took all the novel coronaviruses in the world (the actual viruses, not
101 | David Baltimore on the Mysteries of Viruses Read More
Human beings have a strange fascination with dangerous, predatory animals — bears, lions, wolves, sharks, and more. The top of
93 | Rae Wynn-Grant on Bears, Humans, and Other Predators Read More
It’s hard doing science when you only have one data point, especially when that data point is subject to an
92 | Kevin Hand on Life Elsewhere in the Solar System Read More