freak

One triploid crayfish somehow became more,
each generation merging with the next.
Six strands of DNA--not two, or four--
encodes proliferation without sex.
Ballooning populations rarely last
a monoculture's always prone to pop
there's more to dominance than breeding fast;
one virion could decimate the crop.
Darwinian selection's view is long;
it's not enough to multiply, and fight.
Today's hot strategy might turn out wrong;
it's only looking back we'll know what's right.
Parthenogenic rotifers get by,
but sexless arthropods seem poised to die.

contingency II

hair follicles' and sweat glands' fates are chained
the same progenitors make either cell
selecting better cooling for big brains
our ancestors got hairlessness as well
the best of mutants still must find a mate
and courtship choose the new morphology
bare flesh and taste for same cosegregate
if they'll produce a chance of progeny
most changes must be deleterious
if something viable has been our start
that most will die can't too much worry us
selection--not design--is Darwin's art
we culminate contingency's cascade
but in our image our own god is made

contingent

hair follicles' and sweat glands' fates are chained
the same progenitors make either cell
selecting better cooling for big brains
our ancestors got hairlessness as well
four times--at least--the flapping wing's evolved
however inefficient 'tis for flight
the menu's fixed and Darwin merely solved
for something that would work, 'though it's a fight
a screw-propeller wasn't in the cards
for multicellulars like you and me
and Reynold's numbers make the flying hard
flagella only work when they're at sea
this time, a primate triumphed through the odds
another cast of dice....cephalopods?

legion

sympatric speciation makes no sense
for lake Nyassa's cichlid repertoire
were it one pool, gene-mixing's too intense
what's now one lake was myriad before
each drought estranged genes in the sundry ponds
where local challenges chose fittest traits
without invoking any magic wands
constraining fishy choices of a mate
wet years now bridged the archipelago
and reunited cousins to compete
most cycles, net diversity will grow
'though most are merely something new to eat
hydrology's retold in fins and scales
for those with eyes to read the fishes' tales

in the blood

the unit of selection is the gene
that fails or prospers within its context
the organism's merely a machine
for propagation through courtship and sex
so altruism gives theorists fits
when it transgresses consanguinity
biologists engage in wars of wits 
that strain their Ivy League civility
but larger structures can't be wholly hype
societies evolve by their own rules
a Social Science epiphenotype
a fourth-hand consequence of the gene pools
the Nature vs. Nurture fight's recast
but just as unresolved as in the past

utility function

'phage Lambda's genome was a trip to map
there's too  much information for the space
until you grasp the genes all overlap
three reading-frames, three meanings for each base
where each mutation must affect three genes
Darwinian selection is impaired
each quantum change is tripled and that means
lethality more often than repair
but evolution needs variety
selecting small improvements from the stack
immobile in thy fearful symmetry
the Red Queen's Race will drop you off the pack
such density in code comes at a cost
improvement opportunities are lost

upwards

Charles Darwin challenged Plato's somber rule
that ev'ry pathway forward must slope down
a hundred generations had been fooled
but entropy sets only global bounds
still order can be increased in one spot
externalizing costs to somewhere far
like life emerging on our home blue dot
remotely powered by our fusing star
no Ideal Plan is needed for design
of organisms each fit to its role
selecting random changes over time
dispenses with Creator and with Soul
ditch teleology and study genes
'cause propagating's all that living means

what's sex for? II

each bdelloid rotifer lives on the brink
because its genes are everywhere the same
the clone as one could quickly go extinct
and abstinence would have to be to blame
the Red Queen's Race is always neck and neck
as pathogens and hosts have to compete
so most ditch half our genes each round of sex
to keep a few contenders in the meet
a mammal unlike them exists in flux
our alleles are--at best--semiconserved
but so are those of whomever he fucks
the fittest--over eons--will be served
but changeless rotifers, windborne like seed
forsook the carnal pleasures of the deed

what's sex for?

the Red Queen's Race exacts a fearsome price
as ev'ry sword as cause spurs shield effects
and ev'ry virtue brings its hidden vice
compelling us to cast our dice at sex
parthenogenesis would rule the day
if not for pathogens and parasites
but if the hosts' genomes were all the same
each plague might devastate them in the night
and so we throw out half our genes each round
and trust the ones we love to do the same
reshuffling makes a deck that's new and sound
to let our kids survive to play the game
our genes live on 'though as their hosts, we die
and Darwin speaks to "how" but never "why"

origin of species

no teleology lays out the traits
that dinosaurs' descendants manifest
but as each generation met its fate
a slightly different one sprang from its nest
blind algorithms opt for what's most fit
among the variations in each brood
no absolutes, just who's the best of it
who's fated to be sire, who to be food
selected for an aptitude to sing
and skills at dodging crocodiles and snakes
in time the process gave dinosaurs wings
but not for an Intelligence's sake
thus albatross and penguin both emerge
to sing their scaly ancestor's slow dirge