[87] "...Darwin's "laws" do not encapsulate the transformations of life in quite the same way that Newton's laws capture the motion of objects. They render evolution intelligible, but not predictable or reducible. That is, to understand the evolution of any single organism, the sparse outline provided by Darwin's model must be filled in with long passages of peculiarities-- details of the organism, its development, its mutations, its ecology, the events that befell its ancestors. Only then does the simple, universal model cast any light on any particular organism. And only when the laws serve to elucidate the organism does a study of the organism reveal the action and significance of the laws."
Aaron E. Hirsh (2004). Signs of Life. The Best American Science Writing 2004. By D. Sobel & J. Cohen (Eds.). HarperCollins Publishers. 79--88.
