Evolution
How One Moth Species Can Jam Bats' Sonar Systems
Amazing. We invent something, then discover that Mother Nature had already stumbled onto it. How many blind, random trials equals one useful innovation? (Or, said another way, one brilliant idea?) A vastly huge number, no doubt, but what if you could simulate those trials at blinding speed?
I don't know, but I'm guessing that our computing power is pitifully limited compared with the blind iterations of nature. Which would mean that we're a long way from developing simulations that would run evolution forward and assign probabilities to the paths it might take. If so, too bad, because we need that right now for bacteria that are evolving past our antibiotics, maybe taking us to a worse place than we're able to imagine, and faster. It doesn't seem right that we Big Brains would be out-maneuvered by the Single Cells, but it's all the same to Mother Nature. She couldn't care less.
Byron
Amazing. We invent something, then discover that Mother Nature had already stumbled onto it. How many blind, random trials equals one useful innovation? (Or, said another way, one brilliant idea?) A vastly huge number, no doubt, but what if you could simulate those trials at blinding speed?
I don't know, but I'm guessing that our computing power is pitifully limited compared with the blind iterations of nature. Which would mean that we're a long way from developing simulations that would run evolution forward and assign probabilities to the paths it might take. If so, too bad, because we need that right now for bacteria that are evolving past our antibiotics, maybe taking us to a worse place than we're able to imagine, and faster. It doesn't seem right that we Big Brains would be out-maneuvered by the Single Cells, but it's all the same to Mother Nature. She couldn't care less.
Byron
posted by Byron | Sunday, September 22, 2013
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