Confusing, meandering, and utterly adorable. An examination of a gene’s drive to replicate and survive versus that said drive in an organism. Darwinism commingled with genetic theory, with the occasional side trip into game theory (Prisoner’s Dilemma!).
I ask you, how can you resist? …we have the beguiling image of independent DNA replicators, skipping like chamois, free and untrammeled down the generations, temporarily brought together in throwaway survival machines, immortal coils shuffling off an endless succession of mortal ones as they forge ahead towards their separate eternities.
Oh, and the B. decapitans? A predator ant whose queen seeks out another queen and rides on her back as she performs the one act for which she is uniquely specialized: slowly cutting of the head of her victim. I’ll see myself out now.
