Fellow Foci,
It's ~2 days before the end of the month, time to start voting on the topic suggestions for next month. You may vote between now and 31-May-2001, inclusive. To cast your vote, please reply to this message stating the number of your choice from the two suggestions listed below. Your vote will not appear until all votes are in and the new topic is announced on 1-June-2001.
(1) Evolution & Space-time (January topic list)
Chapter 11 of Lila features a quote from evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr. Mayr also said the following about biological evolution:
1. Organisms are locked into historical constraints; therefore, structures are not created from scratch. Rather, existing historical structures are adapted to new situations.
2. Adaptations are often compromises; structures are each used for different purposes.
3. Not all evolution is adaptive; chance is a major factor in evolution.
4. Selection can only edit varations that exist; the selection pool cannot create new, better characteristics on demand. It must work with what it has.
Can these 4 inferences also be applied to social and intellectual evolution? If so, how?
(2) I would like to hear comments on the concept of "FAME" as a measure of quality of entities on the biological and social levels. (Barry Halgrimson)
Cheers,
Keith
______________________________________________________________________
Keith A. Gillette <http://ninepatch.net/gillette/>
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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