First, regarding ConstitutionalAnalysis, Powell establishes a crucial point about the DNA, as it were, of constitutional doctrine. I intend to argue that there is a fundamental structure to all doctrinal analysis; that every constitutional doctrine can be usefully understood when organized into this structure; and that the development of doctrine, in every area, is best understood as a set of replications, and mutations, of doctrine organized into this fundamental way. The basic parts of this structure have been perpetuated in an environment in which constitutional law has a unique existence beyond the party and policy preferences of the deciders called upon to construe it; indeed, I daresay this structure could not have persisted-through civil war, economic reconstruction, and international conflict-without this status.

XREF: Applies an evolutionary biology metaphor to legal doctrine — connects to Dawkins' memes and cultural evolution theory.

Philip Chase Bobbitt, Philip Chase Bobbitt - Refl…, loc. 215