World Science Festival: “Laws of Life” Is the New “Tape of Life”

"If I could rerun the tape of life from the origin of unicellular organisms... would terrestrial life originate at all? Would we get mobile creatures that we could call animals?" –Stephen Jay Gould, "Fungal Forgery" in Natural History, 1993 "Are there universal laws of life, much like the fundamental laws of physics, which govern or limit the characteristics that make it–in any form–possible?" –Blurb for "Looking for the Laws of Life" panel discussion at the World Science Festival * * * * * Back in the tail end of the 20th century, evolutionary theory went through a dirty, pugnacious little period sometimes known as the Darwin Wars. There were a few different fronts, but they mainly centered around one Big Question: Is history governed by a series of accidents, or is it pulled along by powerful, perhaps fundamental, forces that will override the little blips that are chance occurences? Stephen ...