How predictable is evolution in a chancy world where evolution’s raw material is random mutation?

Abstract

Abstract This is a review of A Series of Fortunate Events, by Sean B. Carroll. First, Carroll uses the decisive role of chance in our lives to deny validity to anthropocentric religion. Then he discusses impacts of chance environmental disasters on the course of evolution, the random origin of all variation on which natural selection acts, and the decisive role of chance in human lives.

Keywords

• Anthropocentrism vs objective science
• Biotic crises and evolution
• Chance in evolutionary outcomes
• Chance in human lives
• Evolutionary convergence
• Major evolutionary innovations