Starfish (Rifters, #1)

by Peter Watts

Brander holds up a finger. “‘Self-replicating information strings evolve as a sigmoid-difference function of replication error rate and generation time’” Two fingers. “‘Evolving information strings are vulnerable to parasitism by competing strings with sigmoid-difference functions of lesser wavelength’.” Three. “‘Strings under pressure from parasites develop random substring-exchange protocols as a function of the wavelength ratio of the host and parasite sigmoid functions.’ Or something like that.” Caraco looks at Clarke, then back at Brander. “What?” “Life evolves. Parasites evolve. Sex evolves to counter the parasites. Shuffles the genes so the parasites have to shoot for a moving target. Everything else—species diversity, density-dependence, everything—it all follows from those three laws. You get a self-replicating string past a certain threshold, it’s like a nuclear reaction.”