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[Gould] points out that people repeatedly misinterpret evolution...as movement in a certain, predictable direction---as a ‘ladder of progress.’ Instead he suggests that if we were able to rewind life’s tape---
thoroughly erasing everything that has actually happened---to some time in the past, there is no reason at all to think the replay would be anything like the actual history of life. Each replay would demonstrate radically different evolutionary directions. This does not mean, though, that evolution is senseless and without meaningful pattern.... ‘Each step proceeds for cause, but no finale can be specified from the start, and none would ever occur a second time in the same way...