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1 " Let's look at one more quick example of modern evolution atwork. In the early 1800s, light-colored lichens covered many ofthe trees in the English countryside. The peppered moth was alight-colored insect that blended in unnoticeably with the lichens.Predators had great difficulty distinguishing the peppered mothfrom its background environment, so the moths easily survivedand reproduced. Then the Industrial Revolution came to the English country-side. Coal-burning factories turned the lichens a sooty black. Thelight-colored peppered moth became clearly visible. Most of themwere eaten. But because of genetic variation and mutation, a fewpeppered moths displayed a slightly darker color. These darkermoths were better able to blend in with the sooty lichens, and solived to produce other darker-colored moths. In little over a hun-dred years, successive generations of peppered moths evolvedfrom almost completely white to completely black. Natural selec-tion, rather than " random accident," guided the moth's evolution-ary progress. "
2 " A tree is alive, and thus it is always more than you can see. Roots to leaves, yes-those you can, in part, see. But it is more-it is the lichens and moss and ferns that grow on its bark, the life too small to see that lives among its roots, a community we know of, but do not think on. It is every fly and bee and beetle that uses it for shelter or food, every bird that nests in its branches. Every one an individual, and yet every one part of the tree, and the tree part of every one. "
― Elizabeth Moon , Oath of Fealty (Paladin's Legacy, #1)
3 " The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about the planet of Golgafrincham: it is a planet with an ancient and mysterious history, rich in legend, red, and occasionally green with the blood of those who sought in times gone by to conquer her; a land of parched and barren landscapes, of sweet and sultry air heady with the scent of the perfumed springs that trickle over its hot and dusty rocks and nourish the dark and musky lichens beneath; a land of fevered brows and intoxicated imaginings, particularly among those who taste the lichens; a land also of cool and shaded thoughts among those who have learned to forswear the lichens and find a tree to sit beneath; a land also of steel and blood and heroism; a land of the body and of the spirit. This was its history. And in all this ancient and mysterious history, the most mysterious figures of all were without doubt those of the Great Circling poets of Arium. These Circling Poets used to live in remote mountain passes where they would lie in wait for small bands of unwary travelers, circle around them, and throw rocks at them. And when the travelers cried out, saying why didn’t they go away and get on with writing some poems instead of pestering people with all this rock-throwing business, they would suddenly stop, and then break into one of the seven hundred and ninety-four great Song Cycles of Vassillian. These songs were all of extraordinary beauty, and even more extraordinary length, and all fell into exactly the same pattern. "
― Douglas Adams , The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #2)