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2005a, 2005b). As West-Eberhard has shown, this is an important source of innovation in evolution. There is also the burgeoning evidence that the genome is in fact a "two-way, read-write system," as microbiologist James Shapiro (2011, 2013, 2022b) characterizes it. Recent pro- gress in microbiology has shown thatan overwhelming majority of DNA changes in the genome are the result of what Shapiro (2011, 2022b) calls "natural genetic engineering" and the influence of internal regulatory and control networks, not random mutations and incre- mental "additive"selection. In fact, rapid genome alteration and restructuring can be achieved by a variety of mobile DNA "'modules"—transposons (McClintock & Moore, 1987), inte- grons, CRISPRs, retroposons, variable antigen determinants, and more (Craig, 2002; Noble, 2006, 2011, 2013, 2017b; Sapp, 2009; Koonin, 2009, 2011, 2016; Shapiro, 2011, 2013; Craig et al., 2015). As Shapiro (2011, 2) emphasizes, "The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable."(See also Shapiro, 2022b.) A further challenge to a gene-centered model of evolution is our growing appreciation of the fact that what was long considered to be irrelevant "junk DNA"—because it was repeti-

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