Telmo Pievani: Imperfect by nature

Discovering that mistakes are the engine of cosmic evolution and life.

We are the result of a series of successful attempts. Our brain and our DNA, two of the most complex systems that nature has produced, are full of imperfections.

But this is how evolution works: not with the precision of an engineer who systematically optimises his inventions, but with the imagination and creativity of a craftsman, who transforms the available material as best he can. After all, natural history is a long catalogue of imperfections that have worked, starting with that infinitesimal deviation in the primordial quantum vacuum from which the universe was born.

Telmo Pievani, internationally renowned philosopher and evolutionist, holds the first Italian chair of Philosophy of Biological Sciences at the University of Padua. A very active and effective populariser, he is the director of Pikaia, the Italian Evolution Portal, coordinates events such as the Genoa Science Festival, and writes for Le Scienze, Micromega and many other magazines.