Contingency and determinism in evolution: Replaying life’s tape

Replaying the tape of life The evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould once dreamed about replaying the tape of life in order to identify whether evolution is more subject to deterministic or contingent forces. Greater influence of determinism would mean that outcomes are more repeatable and less subject to variations of history. Contingency, on the other hand, suggests that outcomes are contingent on specific events, making them less...