Frankie ([info]mundens) wrote,
@ 2008-10-12 18:08:00
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Current location:Wolf Castle
Current mood: cheerful
Entry tags:art, music, science

Ella & the Strandbeests
Neil pointed to Ella Edmondsen's My Space account saying "She's going to be a star". I enjoyed it. She has Imogen Heap and The Mighty Boosh on her top friends page, so she's got some taste :)

Watched this TED lecture today by Theo Jansen. He's not much of a speaker, but he doesn't have to be, his art speaks for itself. More pictures and discussion at WebUrbanist, which was where I found it in the first place.

The walking mechanism alone is impressive, especially as it works in the heavy lift version, I was imagining a Battle-Mech as I watched that version move. But when you combine it with the "brain" built out of bits of plastic tubing and bottles.... well, I suppose you also need to know about the research showing that mechanical logic components are a faster and more efficient than electronic at nano-scales, but still..

Meanwhile some guy thinks we've reached an evolutionary plateau. He's probably right, but I think most people reading that might miss the point, that evolution has stopped in developed countries, so the humans of the future will most likely look like people who are not in developed countries now.

And deep in the bowels of an African gold mine, they find the "loneliest bug on earth". What they mean by that is that it exists in an ecosystem of just one species, itself, living with no light, relying on water, hydrogen and sulphate for its energy.

I'm still useless, but less drugs today makes me hope it's improving.

I ain't happy, I'm feeling glad
I got sunshine, in a bag
I'm useless, but not for long
The future is coming on

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[info]elfs
2008-10-12 05:39 am UTC (link)
evolution has stopped in developed countries.

Nonsense.

Evolution cannot stop. Trying to proclaim that it exists for H. sapiens in one region, but not in another, especially when gene pool remixing is happening at rate never before seen in our species, is to be misinformed. The author of the original shows both a teleological misunderstanding of evolutionary biology and a real failure to grasp our own biological history. I mean, what's that rubbish about "few men over the age of 35 are reproducing, and age is a valuable source of mutations?" Does this guy have any idea at all that for most of our evolutionary period, most of us didn't even live to see 40? That polygamous tribal systems concentrated an awful lot of genetic in single male individuals?

But the key, important part is described in the phrase "as good as it gets." Get this through the thick skull of everyone who says anything remotely like that: evolution does not care if your progeny are smarter, stronger, faster, or live longer. All evolution does is weed out those in the next generation who do the poorest at exploiting our environment. Brains, muscle and speed cost metabolism. Longevity severely impacts selectivity. If being stupider and living shorter makes us better exploiters of an environment (and believe me, a lot of dumb sheep are evidence that it is), then the smart and long-lived will be the ones weeded out.

Evolution isn't teleological. It doesn't have a "plan," an "intent," or a "care" for who we are or what we might become. It's a mechanical process, as relentless, as unfeeling as a meat grinder. There is no "god" of evolution, and biologists do not flock to mildewed walls to touch a stain vaguely shaped like Charles Darwin in the hopes of evolving suddenly Pokemon-style.

It's also not miraculous. It's not a "real time" event. It takes far longer than the human mind is adapted to consider well. He, and I, and you, and everyone around us will be long gone by the time whatever conscious beings are around notice that their gene pool has drifted so far in one direction or another that they could never successfully interbreed with anyone from this generation. They may have drifted so far they might no more want to than you or I would want to mate with a chimpanzee.

The writer is an idiot. And fortunately, he's being treated as such by the biology blogosphere.

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[info]mundens
2008-10-12 06:50 am UTC (link)
Yeah, I know that, one of the reasons I didn't even bother to name him was that I think he's an idiot.

Saying "he's probably right" was, in retrospect, a mistake.

It wasn't meant as an agreement with his biological arguments just with the general idea that those in developed countries are effectively becoming "less survivable" outside of their cotton-wool environment, and that even if his argument was correct, all that means is that the future would come out of non-developed nations

I'm currently watching on TV an attempt by a New Zealander from the city to live sustainably in the country and finding the lack of knowledge on living off the land even in our country, where at least everyone knows where cheese and milk come from, is surprising for some-one like myself who was brought up in a time where everyone was expected to be able to kill and prepare a chicken, milk a cow, etc.

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