Natural Science Forum / Biology / Evolution / March 2008

Please help me with an information from the Dawkins' book "Blind
watchman". I read this book, but i forgot one particular thing.
Namely, there is an example with a sentence which can be reconstructed/
created with an definite number of attempts.

Stinking seas not to blame for 'mother of all mass extinctions'
Scientists on Sunday said they had ruled out a key hypothesis to explain
Earth's greatest extinction, when 95 percent of marine species and 70
percent of land species were wiped out.

A lot of evolution can be described as continuous, gradual change of
pre-existing structures. The change from a dinosaur front limb to a
bird wing can be described as gradual changes in arm proportions,
muscle strengths etc.

Most of my recent, brief essay on why islands leave relatively
few fossils is presented below:
Islands are important as crucibles for new species, and it seems
reasonable to expect that much of the world's gradual evolution has

Logic suggests that life must have began as a reaction to the sun/uv/
heat cycle.
It alone fit the 3 criteria:
1. Force that is constant over time

These excerpts from an article on David Deamer.
UCSC chemist explores the membranous origins of the first living cell
"Membranous boundary structures define all life today," he said. "A
source of membrane-bounded microenvironments on the early Earth was

Guy wrote:

Don't get too excited.  I'm using the term "ultimate" here in the sense
of "evolutionary":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causation
The terms "ultimate" and "proximate" causation have been

Some ideas from:
The ultraviolet history of the terrestrial planets Ð implications
for biological evolution
Charles S. Cockell*,1