Paper V — Biology
30 QUESTIONS
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1.
Is the genome a program, a blueprint, or neither? Defend your choice mechanistically.
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2.
What does it mean for a trait to be heritable, and why is heritability so often misunderstood?
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3.
Explain the thermodynamics of the living cell as an open system far from equilibrium.
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4.
Is natural selection a law, a tautology, or a mechanism?
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5.
What is a gene? Give a definition that survives contemporary molecular biology.
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6.
Account for the maintenance of sexual reproduction despite its twofold cost.
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7.
Why is the protein-folding problem hard even given the sequence?
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8.
What does information theory legitimately contribute to molecular biology?
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9.
Is there a unit of selection? Defend a level.
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10.
Explain the error threshold and its relevance to the origin of replication.
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11.
What distinguishes a signalling network from a mere chemical reaction network?
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12.
Why is convergent evolution evidence about constraint rather than chance?
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13.
What is the physical basis of the fidelity of DNA replication?
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14.
Explain how a developmental program can be robust to noise yet evolvable.
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15.
Is ageing selected for, tolerated, or a physical inevitability?
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16.
What does "junk DNA" mean now, and was the concept a mistake?
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17.
Account for allometric scaling laws in metabolism.
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18.
Explain why the neutral theory of molecular evolution was necessary.
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19.
Is the species concept salvageable, and does biology need it?
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20.
What is the thermodynamic cost of biological information processing?
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21.
How does a ribosome achieve both speed and accuracy?
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22.
Explain epistasis and why it complicates the genotype–phenotype map.
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23.
What would count as a second, independent origin of life, and how would we recognise it?
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24.
Why is cancer better understood as an evolutionary process than as a single disease?
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25.
Explain how phenotypic plasticity relates to, and differs from, evolution.
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26.
What sets the fundamental limits on the resolution of biological imaging?
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27.
Is the brain a computer? Answer with reference to what computation requires.
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28.
Account for the origin of the genetic code's near-universality and its departures.
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29.
What is the role of stochasticity in gene expression, and is it a bug or a feature?
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30.
Which single measurement would most constrain theories of the origin of life?