Here is the link to my recent talk at the American Scientific Affiliation Washington DC Metro Chapter, on June 24, 2016. Its a bit dark, and its long, but about half of the video is discussion from the audience, which is worth hearing.
Among the voices in the Discussion (the camera didnt move, so you cant see them) are Mike Beidler, Keith Furman, Anna Rich, Tom Burnett, Paul Arveson, Langston McKee, and a number of guests whose names I didnt write down.
The Book of Works 
I’m about halfway through so far. This is some really good stuff! Thanks for posting the link. Blessings.
Thanks Ethan. I think the best part is the discussion. I have identified some of the speakers (in a recent edit).
Thanks for posting this. I particularly liked your last two slides and the reference to the Kevin Laland grant from the Templeton Foundtion. It will be interesting to see what becomes of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis in the next few years.
I also enjoyed the notion that randomness works, even for engineering. From around 1968 to 1983, this now retired chemical engineer used an optimization algorithm to find optimum solutions to nonlinear design problems. The algorithm would make random changes in the process variables, then calculate the value function minus a penalty for not meeting all of the design criteria, until it maximized the value function and minimized the penalty function.
Thanks, for your comments, Paul. Dudley Chapman at CCNS on facebook, and Paul Arveson who was at the meeting are both engineers who have talked about using random optimization and selection methods to find solutions quickly. I believe there are now software that can do the job pretty fast.
I share your interest in seeing what happens with the EES, now that some real money is flowing there. I would predict that some parts of it might not be terribly exciting (just because that seems to be how things go) but I am hopeful that there might be some very interesting breakthroughs in at least one or two areas. I am betting on epigenetics and gene expression controls, but that’s mostly because that’s what Im working on. We’ll see. Welcome to the Book of Works. Feel free to browse around. 🙂
Sy – I’ve linked to your video from The Hump of the Camel – our readers deserve to hear your excellent presentation.
Thanks Jon. I was most gratified by the discussion, there were some very bright and thoughtful people in the room. I only wish there had been a camera person there to get the full picture.