Jonathan Losos: Surprises from Evolutionary Biology (BI 63)

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Books and Ideasis back with an interview of Jonathan Losos, author of Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution. This fascinating book reveals the surprising world of experimental evolutionary biology. We explore how experiments both in the laboratory and in the wild are answering long-standing questions about how evolution works.

Ever since Darwin it has been assumed that evolution works extremely slowly, too slowly to be tested experimentally. However, observations in the wild have shown that when environmental conditions change evolution can occur more rapidly than expected. This lead scientists to design fascinating experiments to test another major question: Is evolution predictable or totally random? Was Stephen Jay Gould right when he concluded that if the tape of of life on earth was replayed, the results would be totally different?

Listen now to find out.

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