A book is an effective and enjoyable means of communicating to fellow scientists and the lay public alike. This book was an opportunity to combine my responsibilities as a researcher and an educator into one work. After watching Louis Leakey on the television, walking down the side of Olduvai Gorge past layer after layer of our past, I was hooked. My current theories have grown from a lifetime interest, which took new directions once I started reading about chaos theory. I am still formulating new theories, and will continue to do so.
Science is a dynamic process.
Thus my book is merely a step toward better ideas, not an end product of a particular research trajectory. Chance plays an important role at every level of biological evolution, from genetic recombination to lifetime encounters, and even to the origins of species. Genetic mutation, the mother of invention, occurs where regular biological processes meet chance. Should a mutation successfully spread throughout a population, it is a coincidence that chance met satisfactorily with survival and propagation. Chance and coincidence, along with a host of interacting biological forces including natural selection, set an unpredictable trajectory for the future of a species.