Natural Science Forum / Biology / Evolution / June 2008

Consider the following leading (but typically only reluctantly followed)
question:
What is the best (most adaptive) possible strategy by which an individual
can cope with/survive a harrowing (painful and/or fearsome) predicament (of

Originally published in Science Express on 22 May 2008
     Science 20 June 2008:
     Vol. 320. no. 5883, pp. 1647 - 1651
     DOI: 10.1126/science.1155725

So why do people keep discussing it as though it were?  Evolution is a
deterministic process taking place in a deterministic world.  The only
"randomness" about it is in our own minds due to our inability to
completely understand, track and predict what is going on.  This

HHT / 08
1. Forced energy on chemicals in a specific environment developed
life. Life is defined as the most stable chemical reaction to that
forced energy and environment. Life is based on a 'food' in / waste

Is there any way a gene could change its function (make it opposite,
to be precise) as the individual holding it ages?
How about the ability to digest milk in ancient homosapiens?
Similar to that, is there any way a selfish gene can change to an

The moderator wrote:

Is there anybody out there?
Is there anybody out there? Probably not, according to a scientist from
the University of East Anglia.
A mathematical model produced by Prof Andrew Watson suggests that the

Gary Lynch, the noted neuroscientist, recently co-authored a book "Big
Brain" (2008), where amongst other things he talks about the "Boskop"
skulls discovered in s.e. africa in the early 1900s. These skulls were
on average about 50% larger than normal H.sapiens, especially in

Scientists confirm that parts of earliest genetic material may have come
from the stars
The finding suggests that parts of the raw materials to make the first
molecules of DNA and RNA may have come from the stars.

Published online 4 June 2008 | Nature 453, 717-718 (2008) |
doi:10.1038/453717a
Palaeobiology: The Cambrian smorgasbord
Animal behaviour is an endless challenge to mathematical modellers. In the

Darwinism has always remained falsifiable. Popper confused Herbert
Spencer's infamous "survival of the fittest" tautology with Darwin and
Wallace's non tautologous "natural selection". Popper can hardly be
blamed because even a Neo Darwinist of the stature of W.D. Hamilton who