"The epic of evolution is the sprawling interdisciplinary narrative of evolutionary events that brought our universe from its ultimate origin to its present state of astonishing diversity and organization. In the course of these epic events matter was distilled out of radiant energy, segregated into galaxies, collapsed into stars, fused into atoms, swirled into planets, spliced into molecules, captured into cells, mutated into species, compromised into ecosystems, provoked into thought, and cajoled into cultures. All of this (and much more) is what matter has done as systems upon systems of organization have emerged over fifteen billion years of creative natural history.

The epic of evolution is the biggest of all pictures, the narrative context for all our thinking about who we are, where we have come from, and how we should live. It is the ultimate account of how things are, and is therefore the essential foundation for discourse about which things matter."

Slots and Values
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