Post #2558220

My research is about how life evolved the mechanisms for evolution as we see today, and how the particular form they take shapes the direction and speed of evolution. Interestingly, that's led me to the origin of life literature! It turns out, biologists are mostly concerned with evolution as it is today, which makes it hard to talk about how the process of evolution itself evolved. So, I'm exploring papers like this one that talk explicitly about the emergence of genetics and how that might change the robustness and evolvability of very early organisms. There's a lot to like here! They cut through the debate of whether metabolism or genetics came first with a reframe: perhaps this about processing and evolution of biological information, in analog or digital forms? From this perspective, we can talk about the pros and cons of each vs. both together, and perhaps this can help us put a finer point on what makes life special? #science #evolution #biology (1/2)