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Stargazer43
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17 Apr 2013, 11:34 pm

I really enjoyed this article and thought I'd share it with everyone! Of course it doesn't prove or disprove anything, but it does raise some interesting points, even though I don't particularly agree with many of their assumptions.

http://news.yahoo.com/could-life-older- ... 55318.html



oceandrop
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18 Apr 2013, 12:59 am

Hmm what a bizarre study. Microchips are a human product and their development is influenced by market factors. It's easy to define "progress" in microchips, unlike with nucleotides. Each species also evolves differently, based on population sizes, sexuality, generation times, etc. Don't think this study makes sense or will be taken seriously.



Highlander852456
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18 Apr 2013, 1:09 am

Not easy to calculate since many mutations occur at the same time. A good example would be mutating when animal adapts to life on land. The animal will have to change skin, skeleton, learn to breath oxygen, eat new food. All these mutations must be happening in relative short period of time.



eric76
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18 Apr 2013, 1:23 am

It sounds to me like they were really reaching to arrive at their conclusions. Keep in mind that it IS, at most, a very rough estimate that is very dependent on a number of basic assumptions.



PresidentPorpoise
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18 Apr 2013, 2:35 am

I haven't read the study, but it seems very tentative to me. As it should be. I'm sure that Sharov and Gordon both understand evolutionary mechanisms much better than I do. But this article seems to be playing to the popular notion that evolution = an inevitable increase in complexity, intelligence, etc, or that it moves towards "higher" or "better" organisms, which is a flawed way of viewing evolution (the author's use of the word "epigenetically" also strikes me as a questionably unusual use of the word in the context in which it is written). Organisms evolve such that adaptive traits are more likely to be passed on to progeny, and although this is often coupled with an increase in complexity, it doesn't have to be. For example, I'd say lampreys (weird eel-looking things that are one of the very few living vertebrates to not have a jaw) are doing all right for themselves in their little niche, despite their lack of many of the derived features of "higher vertebrates". With computers, on the other hand, greater complexity is generally associated with the ability to accomplish new tasks, or to accomplish old tasks more quickly, easily, etc. I suppose there's definitely some broad concepts that the "evolution" of computers have in common with the evolution of life, but I think that the link between adaptive advantage and greater complexity is greater in technology than it is in living things.



Fnord
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18 Apr 2013, 2:07 pm

There are too many assumptions:

1. The assumption that Moore's Law can be accurately applied to nucleotide evolution.

2. The assumption that evolution always progresses toward maximum complexity.

3. The assumption that evolution and intelligent design have anything in common.

And the premise seems to lack an explicit statement of the Null Hypothesis; which, briefly stated, is "We could be wrong".



kabouter
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18 Apr 2013, 8:56 pm

Its far too easy to pick holes in it.

Moore's Law is about a fairly constant rate of change. Evolution has hardly had predictable rate of change. There have been long periods of not much change, and then there have been around 3 near extinction events (I think), where up to 90% of life on earth was wiped out. After these there was an incredible explosion of different life forms developing.

Also there were a number of developments, such as chloroplasts, air breathing plants and animals, which have led to sudden increases in complexity.

Evolution has been anything rather than smooth.



ruveyn
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19 Apr 2013, 8:05 am

kabouter wrote:
Its far too easy to pick holes in it.

Moore's Law is about a fairly constant rate of change. Evolution has hardly had predictable rate of change.


Punctuated Equilibrium. Thank you S. J. Gould.

ruveyn