Something Deep Within Us Drives Accurate Messiness

The World, Unfortunately, Rarely Matches Our Hopes And Consistently Refuses To Behave In A Reasonable Manner.

The Origin Of Homo Sapiens, As A Tiny Twig On An Improbable Branch Of A Contingent Limb On A Fortunate Tree, Lies Well Below The Boundary.

Nothing Matches The Holiness And Fascination Of Accurate And Intricate Detail.

Complex Organisms Cannot Be Construed As The Sum Of Their Genes, Nor Do Genes Alone Build Particular Items Of Anatomy Or Behavior By Themselves. Most Genes Influence Several Aspects Of Anatomy And Behavior As They Operate Through Complex Interactions With Other Genes And Their Products, And With Environmental Factors Both Within And Outside The Developing Organism. We Fall Into A Deep Error, Not Just A Harmful Oversimplification, When We Speak Of Genes "for" Particular Items Of Anatomy Or Behavior.

Organisms [...] Are Directed And Limited By Their Past. They Must Remain Imperfect In Their Form And Function, And To That Extent Unpredictable Since They Are Not Optimal Machines. We Cannot Know Their Future With Certainty, If Only Because A Myriad Of Quirky Functional Shifts Lie Within The Capacity Of Any Feature, However Well Adapted To A Present Role.