Many physicists are engaged in the search for a "theory of everything". Biologists, smugly, think they have found one already. Organisms that survive long enough to reproduce and are attractive enough to find a mate pass their genes on to the next generation. Those that do not are evolutionary cul-de-sacs. But the details-how you go on from the basic principles of evolution to explain large-scale patterns in biology—are more divisive. Scientific camps form. Their leaders step onto soap boxes. And only rarely do people concede that their own theories and those of their opponents are not always mutually exclusive.
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