posted by Parijata Mackey @ 3:17 PM
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I'll be back. To make sure that you're doing alright.
posted by Parijata Mackey @ 1:48 PM
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posted by Parijata Mackey @ 9:52 AM
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posted by Parijata Mackey @ 2:10 PM
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1. Darwin saw no significance at first in the finches of the Galapagos. He dutifully collected and tagged his samples, and it was only when some of the labels were lost and he became frustrated about how similar they appeared that he thought they might all be related.
2. Darwin performed a substantial amount of his research by becoming a Victorian era pigeon fancier. These men doted over their birds and bred them for specific characteristics, and although some breeders claimed that they could develop any trait given enough time, none of his fellow fanciers thought this might possibly be an indication that all the known breeds were actually the result of breeding from one ancestor pigeon.
3. Some scholars feel that Darwin believed in recapitulation. What is that? Basically, it's the idea that a blastula is the equivalent of primordial soup, and as the fetus develops, it mirrors evolutionary development. We know Darwin thought this because he wrote about how similar all puppies look (round, chubby, tiny appendages), and yet they all develop into very different breeds. This is because the “essential puppy” morphology is actually the original dog morphology.
4. In Darwin's first edition of the Origin of Species, he asks his reader to contemplate the possibility of a bear becoming a whale-like animal if it spends all of its time in a river hunting. We know today from skeletal structures such as the pelvis and vestigial legs that whales are indeed actually land animals that returned to the aquatic environment.
5. Darwin married his cousin, but only after long debate. He drafted a pro and con list to decide whether or not he was the marrying type. Although he would have less freedom, he decided in favor of marriage because it would offer him good company. At least company better than a dog, he wrote.
6. Erasmus Darwin, Charles's grandfather, had many ideas that are very similar to what we know as (Charles) Darwinian Evolution and contributed a lot to Charles's own ideas. Erasmus is best known for 'Zoonomia' which is filled with precursors. However, Erasmus also writes that whatever the male is fancying during the time of copulation will be what the fetus develops into. In other words, a mating frog may see a chicken walk by and think that the chicken is rather sexy, thus producing a baby frog that very closely resembles a chicken.
7. While in the Galapagos, Darwin gave special attention to the lizard population. He referred to a species of black lizard as “imps of darkness” that were extremely ugly, and performed experiments in which he would hurl a lizard as far as possible into the ocean to puzzle over how it well it could swim, yet how it hated being in the ocean.
8. Darwin remarks repeatedly on the naiveté of the birds of the Galapagos, and how easy it is to kill them. He observed a local boy catching the birds for food by simply sitting next to a source of water, grabbing a visiting bird, and SNAP.
9. Another scientist, Alfred Russell Wallace, also came up with evolution. He wrote to Darwin asking for his opinion, Darwin panicked, and at the advice of colleagues, finished the Origin of Species as soon as possible, leaving out much of what was intended to be included. Wallace and Darwin published together, but as the idea stuck, Wallace began referring to evolution as “Darwin's idea” and considered himself lucky to even be friends with Darwin.
10. Darwin was a tad neurotic, and wrote down almost every idea. From all his letter, notebooks, diaries, etc., it is easy to see the evolution of the idea of evolution. The biggest obstacle to Darwin scholars today is not finding material, but reading Darwin's handwriting.
posted by Parijata Mackey @ 11:31 AM
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posted by Parijata Mackey @ 4:55 PM
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In the year 2525, engineers finally managed to build robots that looked like humans, acted like humans, and were ready to reproduce. Ten thousand robots of various types had been built, all of them female. A research team set out to design a male robot who would be able to find a good mate, found a family, and take care of the little robots until they were able to take care of themselves. They called their first model Maximizer-1, M-1 for short.In the fable, M-1 failed because he tried to find the best, as did M-2. Both ran out of time. G-1 was fast by going for a good enough choice, but was also fast in dropping it. However, the capacity for love, the glue, provided a powerful stopping rule that ended GE-1's search for a partner and strengthened his commitment to his loved ones.
Programmed to find the best mate, M-1 proceeded to identify a thousand female robots that fit his goal of not marrying a model older than himself. He detected five hundred features on which individual female robots varied, such as energy consumption, computing speed, and frame elasticity. Regrettably, the females did not have their individual feature values printed on their foreheads; some even hid them, trying to fool M-1. He had to infer these values from samples of behavior.
After three months had passed, he had succeeded in getting reliable measures on the first feature he tested, memory size, from each female robot. The research team made a quick calculation of when M-1 would be ready to pick the best and discovered that no one in the team would still be alive at that point -- nor would the best female robot.
The thousand females were upset that M-1 could not make up his mind, and as he began recording the second feature, the serial number, they pulled out his batteries and dumped him in a scrap yard. The team went back to the drawing board.
M-2 was designed to focus on the most important features and to stop looking for more when the costs of collecting further information exceeded its benefits. After three months, M-2 was exactly where M-1 was, and in addition was busy measuring the benefits and costs of each feature so that he could know what to ignore. The impatient females ripped out his wires and got rid of him, too.
The team now adopted the proverb that the best is the enemy of the good, and designed G-1, a robot who looked for a mate that was good enough. G-1 had an aspiration level build in. When he encountered the first female who met his aspiration level, he would propose to her -- and ignore the rest. To make sure that he found a mate if his aspirations were too high, he was equipped with a feedback loop that lowered the aspiration level if none of the females were good enough for him over too long a period. G-1 showed no interest in the first six females he met, but then proposed to number seven. Short of alternatives, she accepted.
Three months later, to everyone's pleasure, G-1 was married and had two small kids. While writing the final report, however the team learned that G-1 had left his wife for another robot. Nothing in his brain had prevented him from running off to what looked to him like a better deal. One team member pointed out that M-1 would never have left his wife, because he would only have accepted the best in the first place. That's true, responded the others, but at least G-1 found one.
The team discussed this for a while and then came up with GE-1. He was happy with a good enough female, just like G-1, but was additionally equipped with an emotional glue that was released when he met a good enough robot and adhered more strongly with physical contact. Just to be sure, they inserted a second form of emotional glue into his brain that discharged when a baby was born and tightened after each physical contact with the baby.
GE-1 proposed to a female as quickly as G-1 did, married, and fathered three babies. He was still with them when the team finished their report. He was somewhat clingy, but dependable. Ever since, GE-1 robots have conquered the earth.
posted by Parijata Mackey @ 2:31 PM
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:: in ur labz,
:: hackin ur genomes
"Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." -Indiana Jones
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