The logic of chance : the nature and origin of biological evolution

Toward a postmodern synthesis of evolutionary biology -- The fundamentals of evolution : Darwin and modern synthesis -- From modern synthesis to evolutionary genomics : multiple processes and patterns of evolution -- Comparative genomics : evolving genomescapes -- Genomics, systems biology, and universals of evolution : genome evolution as a phenomenon of statistical physics -- The web genomics of the prokaryotic world : vertical and horizontal flows of genes, the mobilome, and the dynamic pangenomes -- The phylogenetic forest and the quest for the elusive Tree of Life in the age of genomics -- The origins of eukaryotes : endosymbiosis, the strange story of introns, and the ultimate importance of unique events in evolution -- The non-adaptive null hypothesis of genome evolution and origins of biological complexity -- The Darwinian, Lamarckian, and Wrightean modalities of evolution, robustness, evolvability, and the creative role of noise in evolution -- The virus world and its evolution -- The last universal common ancestor, the origin of cells, and the primordial gene pool -- Origin of life : the emergence of translation, replication, metabolism, and membranes -- the biological, geochemical, and cosmological perspectives -- The postmodern state of evolutionary biology -- Appendix A. Postmodernist philosophy, metanarratives, and the nature and goals of the scientific endeavor -- Appendix B. Evolution of the cosmos and life : eternal inflation, "many worlds in one," anthropic selection, and a rough estimate of the probability of the origin of life