05Sep 2023 by Post

What’s Driving Darwin’s Driverless Car?

"survival of the fittest", abductive inference, adaptation, blind drivers, CELS, Charles Darwin, Charles Kocher, Columbia University, Current Biology, Darwinian Evolution Machine, driver, driverless car, Engineering, equilibrium, Eric Anderson, Evolution, fitness ratcheting, fitness valleys, golfers, gravity, Herbert Spencer, ignition, Intelligent Design, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Ken Dill, Mars, Mars rovers, molecular machines, New Zealand, orbits, planets, PNAS, rollercoaster, Science Advances, Second Law of Thermodynamics, selective pressure, software, sponges, TEDx talk, University of Otago, University of Sydney, Victoria University, water
What drives natural selection? Evolutionary forces. What are evolutionary forces? They’re what drive natural selection. Source
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09Jun 2021 by Post

Erika DeBenedictis and the Cost of Playing God

ARF, Audrey Hepburn, bioethics, Center for Genetics and Society, China, Culture & Ethics, Emily Reeves, Erika DeBenedictis, Evolution News, Forbes, gene editing, genome, He Jiankui, HIV, Hong Kong, INK4a, Intelligent Design, ISSCR, Jin-Soo Kim, Jordan Peterson, Marxists, Medicine, Nature (journal), scientists, Seoul National University, TEDx talk, twins, U.S. Senate, Wesley Smith
I won’t recap the splendid work Emily Reeves has already done here in dissecting the TEDx talk from a scientific angle. Source
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21May 2021 by Post

Verdicts of “Poor Design” in Biology Don’t Have a Good Track Record

"poor design", An Introduction to Systems Biology, ARF, bioengineering, biological information, biology, Darwinian processes, diarrhea, Erez Ribak, Erika DeBenedictis, gut bacteria, INK4a, Intelligent Design, MIT, Müller cells, natural selection, neurons, optic nerve, photoreceptors, physiology, random mutation, Technion, TEDx talk, Uri Alon, vertebrate eye, vestigial organs
For years people cited the wiring of the vertebrate eye as evidence of “poor design” in biology. Source
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19May 2021 by Post

Optimality Recognized in Core Biological Infrastructure

"poor design", amino acids, Athel Cornish-Bowden, biology, biology textbooks, carbon, constraints, development, Drosophila, elements, embryology, Erika DeBenedictis, glycolysis, human engineers, human genome, Intelligent Design, María Luz Cárdenas-Cerda, metabolism, Michael Denton, natural amino acids, optimality, Pareto optimality, Princeton University, TEDx talk, William Bialek
I will begin with an example from embryology, then turn to metabolism, and finish with the breadth of chemical space covered by the natural amino acids. Source
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