Lucas Blogs About Improbable Destinies
This book cover brought to you by Wes Anderson. So, what's this book's deal? Well, since you asked, Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution examines experiments in evolutionary biology meant to test whether evolution is the random, non-repeatable result of every selection pressure that's ever acted upon a species or whether it is limited to the possibilities present in an organism's genome, meaning it can be predicted and will inevitably give rise to to the same convergent phenotypes. You're not expecting me to roll out the "English, please," cliche, are you? No. Anyway, this is a popular science book about evolutionary biology by Jonathan B. Losos, a herpetologist who has conducted evolutionary studies on anole lizards in the Caribbean. Specifically, to test the hypothesis that ground-based predation pressure will lead to natural selection for shorter legs in order for increased climbing stability on thin branches (I m...