Leigh Van Valen, Evolutionary Biologist, Dies at 76

Dr. Van Valen, who died in Chicago on Oct. 16 at the age of 76, changed the conversation about how life works in 1973 when he put forward “a new evolutionary law.” Others call it Van Valen’s law.

Based on the study of fossils, it states that the length of a species’ existence says nothing about its chances of dying off. For Dr. Van Valen, evolution was an “arms race.” The best a species can do to survive, he said, is to respond to an adversary’s adaptations, quickly and ceaselessly. A modern lion, for example, might easily outwit an ancient antelope, but it might be no better at outwitting modern antelopes than ancient lions were at outwitting ancient antelopes, and vice versa. (The antelopes might run faster.)

Dr. Van Valen’s metaphor to describe this idea came from the Red Queen in Carroll’s “Looking Glass.” In the book, Alice complains that she is exhausted from running, only to find she is still under the tree where she started.

The Red Queen answers: “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.”

via www.nytimes.com

I'm pretty hard on the New York Times. But they do obituaries better than anyone else, and it's not close. Are there good obituaries blogs? What would motivate someone to start an obituaries blog, and who could possibly enjoy dealing in only the macabre? I'd like to meet them.

Comments

[George]

What about Post Mortem? http://blog.washingtonpost.com/postmortem/

[Adriana]

Since I'm already signed in, I'll leave a comment here because I loved this post and this elegant obituary. I'd love to read an interview with the author Douglas Martin. Reminds me of a scene in Closer, when Jude Law's character (a struggling novelist who writes obituaries) explains to Natalie Portman's character common euphemisms employed in the standard obituary.

[David Jacobs]

Thanks George, but I meant an independent obituary blog, not attached to a newspaper. There are obviously sports, politics, fashion, travel, etc. blogs, but I don't know of any similar obituary blogs. (I bet they are hard to sell ads on.)

[redfox]

Famously, the Times of London has the true ne plus ultra of obituaries. There is a sort of best-of collection of them called Great Lives, which I haven't read. I would love to see a really good, smart, omnivorous obituary blog.