The gang celebrates the research of the late Elisabeth Vrba by talking about two of her papers, as well as her research more broadly. And, despite their best efforts, they get easily distracted on tangentially related side discussions.

Up-Goer Five (Curt Edition):

The friends talk about two papers from someone who they want to remember the memory of because that person is no longer with us. They talk a lot about this person's work, and some other things that come up as they are talking. The big things these two papers look at are how small things working together can build things that are bigger than themselves, and how those bigger things can be changed by the small things but not in a way where the big things can be known just by looking at the small things. The big things have stuff in them that come up from the way the small things work together to build something bigger than themselves.

References:

Vrba, Elisabeth S. "Macroevolutionary trends: new perspectives on the roles of adaptation and incidental effect." Science 221.4608 (1983): 387-389.

Vrba, Elisabeth S. "Mammals as a key to evolutionary theory." Journal of mammalogy 73.1 (1992): 1-28.