Symbiogenesis as a Partner of Mutation

The networks of my ever-scrambled brain tubulin flash somewhat disparate thoughts in the biology quadrant. First, my mind can flip through the pages of most any biology text, whether old, quite old, or new, and under headings having to do with novelty, variety, and how evolution works, there will be the well-lit neural highways of mutation and recombination. Crossing over at the metaphase plate, and random genetic mutations, most of them lethal, are seemingly the everlasting mantra. But now another image shuffles by, that of the room in which I sit. Everything here has its cultural history, its evolved state through human use, disuse, whim, and conviction. On a deeper plane, each object--from Quercus floor slats to the quirky plastic clicker ever-ready at the sofa--also has its earth history.The elements all came from somewhere on or in the planet. Yet the wholeness of the room, its assembled parts, did not gradually evolve--the room and its inhabitants did not await a slow, ever-changing, random expression that is now this orderliness. [End Page 287] Instead, parts were acquired.The old Victorian chair was brought in one day whole and complete and even a bit worn.