[alexholehouse]

Thank you - categories vs. categorise is a great spot!!! Where are the spelling mistakes? I don't see the missing 'the' in the first sentence? Mechanism here is in the abstract, if that's what you're referring to? That said, I've also not slept a lot in the last week...

FWIW, this is the submission to my committee, so I'm now spending the next few weeks meticulously going through to tighten up the grammar, catch typos etc., before it gets officially submitted in June.

[jfaucett]

Yes. I think he meant

"We wish to understand mechanism through "

should have been

"We wish to understand the mechanism through "

I had to pause on that spot too because it felt stilted when reading over it, though after reading it again I got what you were talking about and it read fine.

[anentropic]

> but equivalently fit ways, then given the stochastic nature of evolution this is almost guaranteed to happen

I would probably put different commas:

"but equivalently fit ways then, given the stochastic nature of evolution, this is almost guaranteed to happen"

I suggest this based on intuition alone, but I believe the principle is: http://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/commas_for_parenthesi...

[henry_bone]

My bad on the missing 'the'. Mechanism is in the abstract. Of course it is. I see it now. Sorry about that.

Probably wise to mention your PhD here on HN. Nerds (apart from me) are the finest proof readers and grammar checkers the world has ever seen.

Seriously, all the best on your PhD submission. Sorry for the confusion.

[alexholehouse]

Not at all - there's some additional text that provides set-up for the idea of mechanism. Re-reading it now cold, I read it exactly as you (and others) did as well. And I (embarrassingly) am relatively confident I wouldn't have caught the categories/categorise error, huge thank you!