I'll simply request, by way of being constructive, that you take a read of the paper I cited on page 3. — StreetlightX
So with that in mind, does making medicine to aid survival prevent natural selection? Or is the ability to make medicine a naturally selected trait? — Michael
Right, so what about spider interference? Is that natural selection, or artificial selection (or spiderficial selection)? — Michael
"Dams, nests, webs, cities, and genetic engineering are not evolution" - as though this sentence was even sensical to begin with - well, I'm sorry, but it's clear that you don't have the terms of evolutionary science down well enough for this discussion to be productive. — StreetlightX
As to the usefulness of distinguishing between natural and artificial, consider SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. — Marchesk
My point here is not to argue for intelligent design, just to highlight a philosophical curiosity. — aletheist
Individual genetic 'defects' mean nothing evolutionarily unless they come to define a species as a whole.
But is it not true that genetic defects which would normally kill certain individuals are now becoming more present in the species as a whole as those with genetic defects are becoming able to bear children with those same defects. Even though at the moment these defects may form a minority, the number of people with genetic diseases is rising, particularly through the advent of non-uteral birth. — Javants
It is interesting that SETI, forensics, and certain other fields that are widely acknowledged to be properly scientific rely on the presupposition that the outcomes of intentional processes are objectively distinguishable from the byproducts of natural processes; yet the same principle is somehow ruled out of bounds in biology. — aletheist
Hawking also said that to understand the lights of Earth, you must know about life and minds. What are these lights that shine from planet Earth and what do they mean? I think those lights mean that someone left the lights on.
All of those lights are inadvertent waste. For the past 100 years the Earth has been wastefully beaming radio and TV signals into the universe, not because we wanted to share I Love Lucy with the universe, but because our broadcasting strategies were primitive.
This “shining of the Earth” that Stephen suggests is a sign that the universe has become aware, is maybe more correctly interpreted as a sign that something on Earth has become wasteful.
As we become more knowledgeable and efficient, signals that were once broadcast into space are squeezed into fibres. Earth will soon stop broadcasting its millions of mobile phone conversations. Routers and cell towers will migrate into the wall paper of every living room. The Earth will stop shining.
The conspicuous consumption of resources and the inadvertent beaming of info-waste into space will end.
Arthur C Clarke wrote that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, but I think Karl Schroeder’s modified version may be more relevant for SETI searches:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Nature […] either advanced alien civilizations don’t exist, or we can’t see them because they are indistinguishable from natural systems.
http://theconversation.com/what-is-the-search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence-actually-looking-for-44977
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