I have such mixed feelings about this paper!
It's asking a really interesting question: how does the ability of single cells to self-organize affect evolution? They observe that genes don't determine what an organism will look like or how it behaves. Some species, like planaria, have messy, corrupted genomes, yet they manage to produce the same body shape reliably, every time, and can even regenerate it after an injury. Seemingly, it's the cells that know how to do this, not the DNA! That's extraordinary, and it seems likely this same thing is happening, to different extents, in all multicellular organisms.
This is a profound observation that suggests we need a better and more nuanced story of evolution. It's also a fun thing to study with simulation experiments, like this one!
I do really like the experiment, but it should have huge caveats, and they're way too generous in interpreting these results, and in generalizing them to biology.
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#science #alife