Gregory Taylor

Lilli Wessling Hart

The Ancestor's Tale: a Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution

 apparently engages with an intriguing line of inquiry: If evolution could be re-run, how might the story end differently? To quote Dawkins:

What systems have evolved many times independently, like eyes?

Or "several times", like echolocation? Have some things evolved only

once, or not at all? I suspect that we'd find certain potential evolutionary

pathways which life is "eager" to go down. Other pathways have more

The cool part of the excerpt, IMHO, is his consideration of evolutionary one-offs. Amazing stuff.

This excerpt from Richard Dawkins' new book  The Ancestor's Tale: a Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution apparently engages with an intriguing line of inquiry: If evolution could be re-run, how might the story end differently? To quote Dawkins:

What systems have evolved many times independently, like eyes?
Or "several times", like echolocation? Have some things evolved only
once, or not at all? I suspect that we'd find certain potential evolutionary
pathways which life is "eager" to go down. Other pathways have more
"resistance"....

The cool part of the excerpt, IMHO, is his consideration of evolutionary one-offs. Amazing stuff.


This excerpt from Richard Dawkins' new book  The Ancestor's Tale: a Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution apparently engages with an intriguing line of inquiry: If evolution could be re-run, how might the story end differently?

Nourishing opportunities for imagination (book pointer)