Evolution is something that happens, willy-nilly, in spite of all the efforts of the replicatiors (and nowadays of the genes) to prevent it happening.

willy-nilly (adv) 1: in a random manner; ”the houses were randomly scattered”; ”bullets were fired into the crowd at random” [syn: randomly, indiscriminately, haphazardly, arbitrarily, at random, every which way] 2: without having a choice

– source: The Selfish Gene, p. 18

But then, what of the need to perpetuate the whole phylum of vertebrates?

phylum (n) 1: (linguistics) a large group of languages that are historically related 2: (biology) the major taxonomic group of animals and plants; contains classes – source: The Selfish Gene, p. 10

The dates of maximum tilt of the Earth’s equator correspond to the summer solstice and winter solstice, and the dates of zero tilt to the vernal equinox and autumnal equinox.

solstice (n) : either of the two times of the year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator – source: Winter Solstice — from Eric Weisstein’s World of Astronomy

He’s got nice feet, Pete, but the bottom sides are just, you know, really dirty and calloused.

calloused (adj) : having skin made tough and thick through wear [syn: thickened] – source: The Two Towers SEE R1, disc three

And people were giving me a bit of a wide berth.

berth (n) : 1. (aut.) (a) convenient sea room (b) a room in which a number of the officers or ship’s company mess and reside (c) the place where a ship lies when she is at anchor, or at a wharf 2: an allotted place; an appointment; situation or employment 3: a place in a ship to sleep in; a long box or shelf on the side of a cabin or stateroom, or of a railway car, for sleeping in – source: The Two Towers SEE R1, disc three

When Professor Archibald Henderson titled his definitive biography of George Bernard Shaw Playboy and Prophet, he probably came closer to using the word Playboy as we conceive it than is common today. Certainly, he did not mean that the highly prolific playwright-critic was an all-play-no-work sybarite.

sybarite (n) : a person addicted to luxury and pleasures of the senses [syn: voluptuary] – source: The Playboy Philosophy

I asked Peck to tell me about his life. He was born on Long Island and had a peripatetic childhood, he told me, moving from Long Island to upstate New York to Colorado and Kansas.

peripatetic (adj) : traveling especially on foot [syn: wayfaring] – source: The Takedown Artist

The most ghastly wound is on a man who looks about nineteen: a ragged cicatrix that winds from one corner of his mouth to beneath his left ear, then all the way around his head, under the right ear, and back to the other corner of the mouth, as though the assailant intended to peel off the top. A sadist’s trophy.

cicatrix (n) : a mark left (usually on the skin) by the healing of injured tissue [syn: scar, cicatrice] – source: ”Guarding Sing Sing”

Do the young fans of Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal even know that there was an actor in the recent past who would make their idols look like bantamweights?

bantamweight (n) 1: weighs 115-126 pounds 2: an amateur boxer who weighs no more than 119 pounds – source: The lost boy

Long live anarchy! Lickspittle!

lickspittle (n) : an abject flatterer or parasite – source: Doctor Zhivago (R2), 1:44:40