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Author Topic:   Questions on "Random" Mutations
Fosdick 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5500 days)
Posts: 1793
From: Upper Slobovia
Joined: 12-11-2006


Message 76 of 80 (411461)
07-20-2007 6:06 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by Jazzns
07-16-2007 7:50 PM


Extended phenotypes
Jazzns wrote:
Life in no way mimics the "evolution" of technology.
Dawkins, in his The Extended Phenotype, offers a good argument to the contrary. He says the evolution of technology is evidence of "the long reach of the gene," which is in every way about the evolution of human life (or almost any life). Web building is a spider's technology”a spider's extended phenotype”and it is just as much a survival advantage as any human's food-capturing invention. Cone snails and hydras shoot harpoons at their victims. Electric eels electrocute theirs. Chimps might club theirs to death. Ant lions use sand and gravity to make pitfalls to catch their victims. Is there something new and uniquely human about technological evolution?
”HM

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 Message 77 by NosyNed, posted 07-20-2007 6:36 PM Fosdick has replied

  
Fosdick 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5500 days)
Posts: 1793
From: Upper Slobovia
Joined: 12-11-2006


Message 78 of 80 (411476)
07-20-2007 7:39 PM
Reply to: Message 77 by NosyNed
07-20-2007 6:36 PM


Re: Technology Evolution
NosyNed wrote:
The technology does not reproduce with variation from within and selection from without.
Aah...that depends on how you define those terms.
The changes only have the most passing of likeness to biological evolution.
Nah...they're almost seamless in the Dawkinsian sense. Genes and memes are sibblings of the same mother.
”HM

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 Message 77 by NosyNed, posted 07-20-2007 6:36 PM NosyNed has replied

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 Message 79 by NosyNed, posted 07-20-2007 8:29 PM Fosdick has replied

  
Fosdick 
Suspended Member (Idle past 5500 days)
Posts: 1793
From: Upper Slobovia
Joined: 12-11-2006


Message 80 of 80 (411550)
07-21-2007 10:02 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by NosyNed
07-20-2007 8:29 PM


Re: Technology Evolution
Both biological and technological evolution are manifestations of digital communication. Both genes and memes are communicated digitally. Genes use nucleotides and codons as bits and bytes, while memes use letters and words in the same capacity. You can't have biological evolution without digitally communicated genes. And you can't have technological evolution without digitally communicated memes.
”HM

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 Message 79 by NosyNed, posted 07-20-2007 8:29 PM NosyNed has not replied

  
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