...my main assertion is simply this: we know #evolution has accomplished the creation of #design, and we don't need magic to explain it. This is, to quote Dennett, deeply counterintuitive. Because our sense that design has to come from a mind is deep intuition. It's much more than a flighty theory tossed out by some influential dingbat and subsequently fossilized in dogma or recorded wisdom. It's an intuition.

#scicomm
#EvolutionIsEasy
#Biology

https://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2023/08/science-intuition-and-strange-inversion.html

Thoughts on quintessence, essence, #mutation, and #evolution. Thanks to #Hamlet as always.

---
What is the "essence" of a barn owl? Can it change? What is the "essence" of Nerve Growth Factor? Can it change? Just asking these questions is, to me, flirting with madness. Or at least confusion.
---

#Blaugust2023
#essentialism
#EvolutionIsEasy
#Shakespeare

https://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2023/08/thoughts-on-quintessence-mutation-and.html

Following up on yesterday's post about the vast universe of protein sequence space. I mentioned Dan Dennett's brilliant Library of Mendel, itself a subset of the famous Library of Babel.

Today I go more deliberately through the Library of Babel concept, and rename the protein library to The Library of Maynard Smith. (Frances Arnold at Caltech already did that, more than 10 years ago!)

#EvolutionIsEasy
#ProteinEvolution
#blaugust2023
#scienceblogging
#AdaptiveWalk

https://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2023/08/contemplating-libraries-in-biology-not.html

Change is hard.
#Evolution is easy.

That's the theme of my writing (book) project. My claim is that we* have a tendency to think of evolution as hard: life is fragile, good things are rare, death is everywhere. Life seems impossible, miraculous. Plus, we continuously confront a depiction of evolution as big radical change that feels like an impossible transformation.

#Blaugust
#ScienceBlogging
#EvolutionIsEasy
#Blogging

1/2

https://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2023/08/change-is-hard-evolution-is-easy.html