The Games Species Play 



Joan Mir6, Le Chant au Rossigne ^ Minuit et la Piute Matinale; © 1 994 Artist's Rights Society; Perls Galleries. New York 



In the good old days — say a century ago, give or take a few decades — scientists had a 

 clear understanding of the evolution of life. Lispired by Charles Darwin's view of the role of 

 natural selection, they argued learnedly about the survival of the fittest and the immutabihty 



of species. These radical ideas even moved into social and political realms — sometimes 



with ugly consequences. But life, in all its complexity, doesn't follow the clear-cut rules we 



are inclined to draw up for it. And good science never stops looking, questioning, learning, 



and challenging even its most sacred concepts. Scientists, with tools of high technology (as 



examples, they can now decode a gene, watch a cell battle an intruder on its membrane, 



trace an element through a complex food chain) and aided by the vast accumulation and 



circulation of knowledge (the electronic information highway is the latest gimmick, but 



universal postal service, fast printing presses, and cheap photocopiers weren't shabby 



innovations, either) are indeed making progress in understanding how life works. The 



following studies (selected from thousands of equally intriguing possible topics) reveal 



some of that progress and the continued significance of the Darwinian perspective. They 



also show that biological science is still the most exciting game on the face of the earth. 



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