[tendeer]

Very well written article that allowed a non-biologist but engineer like me to follow. Systems Biology is quickly becoming one of the most interesting fields, IMO.

The observations about organisms catching up and slowing down is consistent with (the regression to the mean)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean]. Although it's something I only recently read about in Daniel Kahnemnan's Thinking Fast and Slow, it's applicability is widespread; so much so that I was not surprised seeing it in action here.

One thing that I do not fully agree with (or maybe that I do not fully understand) is the final evolutionary endpoint was measured simply by it's ability to grow in specific lab conditions. While this is a necessary condition for equality of endpoints, it is in no way a sufficient one. It is very possible, and even highly likely that while that goal of fitness is optimized for, evolution changes the final organism's way of reacting to other phenomena. I'm not sure if there is a better way to quantify equality (or some notion of edit distance) though.