Important Observations:

              (1) All living things are made up of cells.

A cell is a 1-100 micrometer structure, which consists primarily of a gel-like substance and is enclosed in a phospholipid bi-membrane. All living things are made up of cells. Plants and animals are made up of the same cells that comprise the bodies of microscopic life. In the case of macroscopic life, however, millions to trillions of cells all communicate and coordinate with each other in addition to being physically connected to each other. Although there is a large variety among cells, all known cells are similar enough that they are thought to have had a common ancestor some 3 billion years ago. Cells are broadly classified as either prokaryotic or eukaryotic, depending on whether the cell contains membrane-bound organelles within it. I am not sure whether this binary classification has deep significance or is a matter of convention. It is universally agreed that the observation that all living things are made up of cells implies that multicellular life has unicellular origins, although there is evidence that some unicellular organisms, like yeast, came from multicellular ancestors. 

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(2) Cells are reprogrammable, and DNA is the code.

 

(3) All cells in multicellular organisms contain the same DNA, even though they only express a very small amount of that DNA. 

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(4) Cells are not doing their best to survive. 

The cells of multicellular organisms routinely undergo an active process of programmed self-destruction for the benefit of the organism or its kin. I suspect cells also actively decrease their own fitness for the benefit of genetically distinct cells, on both the microscopic and macroscopic levels. 

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(5) Exponential growth is unsustainable and inevitably follows from replicating life under natural selection at the gene level. 

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(6) Population extinction plays a role in evolution. Does beauty? 

 

(7)  The universe is as simple as possible, but no simpler. 

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