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okay so my name is carlos moneys gun and

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the last time I ran this through it was

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13 minutes but I cut out the 90 seconds

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where I just stare you guys down so I

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think we'll be fine okay so my topic is

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what universe of biology should be him

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you know you're probably wondering what

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universal biology is let alone what it

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should be so there's a reason we don't

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think about biology as universal and it

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goes back to this guy who in 1859 wrote

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this really great book in which he

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argued among other things that there was

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common descent that all creatures on

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this planet ultimately trace their

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ancestry back to some last Universal

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common ancestor Luke gun and it so in a

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sense we're all related we have a sample

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size of one right you know before this

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it was reasonable to suppose that

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biology was as universal as any other

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science like physics or chemistry

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because he had millions of species you

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could generalize over them you could

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figure out interesting patterns and make

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interesting conclusions but once we

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realize that this is the case where

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should where in this kind of weird

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precarious situation now very few other

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Sciences if any are in this situation

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might even psychologies in the situation

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like in psychology could do comparative

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studies with chimpanzees for instance

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the closest I could think of was

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Egyptology which isn't really much of a

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science so this means that we're all

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alone and that everything we're

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generalizing over everything we're

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trying to figure out about biology is

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the dumbest in this context of a single

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example nevertheless a lot of people

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have thought that they could general are

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universalize biology and come up with

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just the parts of biology that are

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expected to apply everywhere everyone to

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every evolutionary system so these are a

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couple of people that have tried this

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the most recent group that tried that is

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at least claim to try to do this is this

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nice little group of they call

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themselves astrobiologists and I met a

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bunch of them in the bar yesterday a

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great these so I'm just going to read

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this a little bit so we must move beyond

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the circumstances of our own particular

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origins in order to develop a broader

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discipline Universal biology we need to

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exploit universal laws of physics and

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chemistry to understand polymer

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formation self-organization processes

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energy utilization information transfer

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and Darwinian evolution so these are all

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my emphasis and I'll get a little bit

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more into this so this is this was a

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promissory note I don't not very much

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has been done on this front since it was

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proposed but before I get into this I'm

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just messing with a camera I'm just

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making you happy to have to move it

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around okay so before I get into this we

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need to start talking about what is

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biology and a lot of people think that

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this means that you have to define life

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but there's very good reasons to think

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that we don't that we will never succeed

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in defining life I personally think that

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there's this continuum between abiotic

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and biotic factors and so even

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attempting to define life is equivalent

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to trying to say that there's a

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distinction between red and orange yeah

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there is but where do you draw the line

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there's no justified place to do it

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luckily it doesn't matter I think

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there's a more interesting way of

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carving nature edits joints to use the

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old phrase so the things that really

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matter aren't life kind of captures it

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but I think the thing that we need to

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focus on is evolution I think so the

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dope jansky Maxim is that nothing in

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biology makes sense except in the light

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of evolution and I think that

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astrobiologists haven't taken full

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advantage of evolution I there's a lot

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of power in evolutionary theory that is

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very helpful so

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going back to what we saw the smiths

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thing of this camera going back to the

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definition that the roadmap proposes it

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said that we need to exploit these

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universal laws of physics and chemistry

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we take physics and chemistry to be

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universal but there it's interesting

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that much of what biology is is

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functional it's defined by what it does

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not what it is so there's lots of ways

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to realize certain concepts in biology

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and I'll give an example of examples

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right now so even though life is based

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on chemistry and physics all the really

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interesting stuff occurs under a variety

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of different configurations right so now

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from here it doesn't necessarily follow

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that there's no necessary universal laws

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of biology it's just that they're

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they're going to be different and I

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prefer to think of this in terms of

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recurrent causal mechanisms took me like

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five but 20 minutes to make these this

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morning I couldn't find them online so

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gears so those of you they can't help

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okay uh-huh so recurrent causal

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mechanisms I think is a better way of

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approaching this instead of trying to

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figure out how to scale up from laws of

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physics and this I should probably

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justify why i said that biology is at

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least at least partially functional and

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a lot of things in biology or defined

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functionally so take for example the

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concept of wings it's not just a cheers

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spin-off I don't know why you leave

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these jokes in I need it ah I have a

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problem ok so there's butterfly wings or

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bird wings there's a dragonfly wings and

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then there's the bat wings all of these

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evolved separately parallel evolution to

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solve the same design problem to how to

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fly now

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there's also multicellularity for

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example has evolved 25 times in the

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history of life eyes this thing here

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those have evolved at least 40 times and

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probably as much as 65 times in the

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history of life so there's something

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there there's something about the

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function that role that things play that

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is how we should start approaching

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universality in biology so this is what

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I propose we should think of universal

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biology as a set of all interesting

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evolutionary models which make no

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reference to any considered facts on

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earth and so we're expected to obtain

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elsewhere in the universe this talk is

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based on two papers by the way email me

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if you want them one of them is more of

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a literature review one develops us a

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little bit more and justifies my use of

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all of those words ok so for structural

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things that are based on it that are in

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biology and based on physics and

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chemistry maybe maybe just approaching

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it the way now so the roadmap approaches

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it is fine but for other things we

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should probably focus on these Universal

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these design problems that are expected

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to obtain everywhere in the universe

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like resistance to radiation perhaps a

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fidelity of information transfer might

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be another thing and this is not the

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kind of thing that can be done by one

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person which probably the reason why

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hasn't been done by one person even

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though a lot of people claim to try them

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this is a discipline wide effort which

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is why I come here to you today I'm okay

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so what it should be we should seek out

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these broadest possible candidate

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Universal generalizations that are

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consistent with research categorized

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them justify them seek maybe seek some

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out of patterns and then test against

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nature if possible and some of this will

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turn out to be possible

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I expect I actually was going to take a

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screenshot of the database that I've

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been working on but it turns out tables

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are really boring so here's a different

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kind of table that's slightly less

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boring so we've seen this has been set a

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couple of times these are all things

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that I've picked up from the literature

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of various places huh okay that's

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troubling okay so so essentially a lot

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anyway the point is that'll do it okay

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the point is that they're all of we can

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investigate these people have

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highlighted these okay people have taken

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some time to two point these out

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whenever they find them this one's the

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Benner's that said that in a couple of

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interviews I don't necessarily stand by

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any of these I just think that a lot of

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people should start thinking in these

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terms okay now this might go contrary to

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what a lot of how we think normally of

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science a lot of people don't want to

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make these wide claims about things it's

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typically viewed as is risky but if

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science is about testability then the

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broader the claim and the stronger you

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test it the better science you're doing

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I'm not entirely sure that's what

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science is about but that's it at least

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what we have to believe in doing science

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so I'm see for example this observation

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of an eclipse in 1919 that tested this

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theory by this guy I try to choose the

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pictures of these of Einstein and Darwin

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that were more appropriate to when they

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actually developed these views rather

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than the picture

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then with huge beards and crazy hair

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that we are so familiar with so he

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proposes that gravity actually that

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object actually bend the space around

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them and an interesting test of this is

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during a solar eclipse stars should be

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slightly different from where we see the

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normally and it takes a dozen years but

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eventually this is observed this is a

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wild claim and when it's not refuted

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it's corroborated and so I'm proposing

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doing something similar to like that for

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biology as his potential payoff so

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Universal claim is falsified by a single

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counter example so any claim and

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universal biology should be falsified by

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a single if you see if you find one

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group set of organisms that prefers

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higher isotope higher isotopes for no

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reason then that seems to go against the

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claim at all life prefers higher

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isotopes largely sorry lighter isotopes

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okay so by seeking these mechanisms we

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can better get at this universality this

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is doable to a limited extent it'd be

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great if we had other examples of life

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but since we don't we should start

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thinking about what that would look like

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maybe make these claims that would

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actually be tested if we encountered

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life rather than just trying to explore

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the evidence and saying what it shows us

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so in sum we had a systematically

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categorize this biology in a way that

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highlights the parts I'm like the

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universal should be use this approach

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should be useful in that pursuit and