There is no escape from evolution (variation and selection).

Sure there is. Organisms could, in theory, create perfect replicas without variation for selection to act on. Contrariwise, they could create new organisms depending on what they needed that would bear no relation to themselves and would not reproduce in kind (or at all).

If I could write an AI, the last thing I'd want is to make it reproduce with random variations. If I could genetically engineer myself or my children, I'd want to introduce deliberate changes and eliminate random ones. (Apart ... (read more)