Steven Johnson

There is nothing mystical about

Thatcher’s study suggests a counterintuitive notion: the more disorganized your brain is, the smarter you are.

the unexpected seems the only law

Reproduction without sex is a simple matter of cloning; you take your own cells, make a copy, and pass that on to your descendants

It doesn’t sound like much fun

it’s a strategy that has worked very well for

Asexual reproduction is faster and more energy efficient than the sexual variety: you don’t need to go to the trouble of finding a partner in order to create the next generation.

This is what Stuart Kauffman recognized when he first formulated the idea of the adjacent possible: that there is something like an essential drive in the biosphere to diversify into new ways of making a living.

in challenging times, an organism needs new ideas to meet those new challenges

Reproducing asexually makes perfect sense during prosperous periods: if life is good, keep doing what you’re doing