Stephen Jay Gould, the great American paleontologist, liked to say – particularly in A Wonderful Life, that if the tape of evolution were replayed a million times, a species like ours would not necessarily evolve. He made this point in, and a debate rages to this day about whether he meant chance, as Daniel Dennett claims, or contingency, as Michael Shermer claims.
Biochemist Michael Denton of the University of Otago in New Zealand has an interesting take on the question in Nature’s Destiny:
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