Gizmodo 
Enter your username and password.
Tip your editors:
tips@gizmodo.com
Editorial Director:
Brian Lam | Email | Twitter
Editor:
Jason Chen
Email | AIM | Twitter
Features Editor:
Wilson Rothman
Email | Twitter
Senior Contributing Editors:
Jesus Diaz
Email | AIM | Twitter
Mark Wilson, Reviews
Email | AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editors:
Matt Buchanan
Email | AIM | Twitter
Adam Frucci
Email | Twitter
Sean Fallon
Email | Twitter
Jack Loftus
Email | Twitter
John Herrman
Email | Twitter
Dan Nosowitz
Email
Chris Mascari
Email
Danny Allen
Email | Twitter
Rosa Golijan
Email | Twitter
Chris Jacob
Email
Columnist:
Brendan I. Koerner
Interns:
Don Nguyen
Email
Kyle VanHemert
Email
Comment Intern:
Nick Ellenoff | Email
Comment Account Questions:
Comments@gizmodo.com
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/16/09
11/17/09
11/17/09
11/16/09
I look forward to This Cyborg Life 2.0! #cyborgs
11/15/09
11/15/09
11/15/09
11/15/09
11/15/09
11/15/09
11/15/09
11/13/09
[dailyrampager.wordpress.com] #thiscyborglife
11/13/09
11/13/09
11/13/09
11/13/09
11/13/09
Turds per second? #thiscyborglife
11/13/09
11/13/09
11/13/09
11/12/09
11/09/09
11/09/09
Try putting an equal amount of force on your car/trucks suspension. The suspension in your car or truck would not last nearly as long as your knees would. And your vehicles suspension is going to be made of steel parts.
11/09/09
11/09/09
11/09/09
I think when you get down to every little system in our bodies though it is just a bunch of small efficient designs all working together. #cyborgs
11/09/09
Intelligent design would make sense to something like anatomy, which was such a mystery thousands of years ago before science was so advanced. But in today's world there's little room for "because i said so".
Not that i have anything against anyone's religion, just saying...
Why is the human eye so complex?
Is it because the creator made it so, or because of billions of years of pass/fail evolution? #cyborgs
11/09/09
What has always boggled my mind is when considering evolutionary systems which would be useless until fully adapted. For example, ecolocation in dolphins. How would slowly, over time, a dolphin screaming into the water be useful without the equipment to use it as sonar?
Are there recorded examples of actual DNA changes leading to changed characteristics? (I know Viruses dont have DNA, how about bacteria changes?) I'm not a hard science major, so I'm really at a loss. Could some Dr. in Bio extrapolate on this for us? Or maybe a non-scientist friendly book out there? #cyborgs
11/10/09
But in general, not to be overly negative but your examples don't make much sense...
A phenotype is just an observable characteristic. It almost always determined by a different genotype, ie one or more differences in genes. It's really simple. Moths breed rapidly. Most of the moths that were not camouflaged by the soot were eaten.
So within a small number of generations the genes that expressed dark coloration were much more prevalent in the population than the ones that expressed light coloration. The mutation probably happened a long time ago, but like blue or green eyes, was probably harmless - until it suddenly became the number one trait for selection.
Your "dolphin screaming in the water" example makes even less sense, since that has already been shown to involve both genetic components and learned behavior - and besides, you might as well just become derivative and say "dolphins are complicated!" Why bother picking an "example I can't explain myself" at that point...
And "pass/fail evolution can't account for certain advanced or symbiotic systems" - that's just a random statement you are making without any supporting evidence whatsoever! Citation please? #cyborgs
11/10/09
Okay. Evolution is empirically false. Ready? Okay. So the statistical probability of the world as we know it evolving is impossible. Scientists argue that over an infinite period of time anything that can happen will.
Here is the flaw in the logic:
You cannot pass an infinite amount of moments to arrive at this moment. If the universe has no beginning and no end we could never be here because we would have to have traversed an infinite amount of moments to make it here. Since you can't travel past infinity the logic breaks down. Therefore the universe must have a starting point. If there is a starting point then evolution is statistically impossible. #cyborgs
11/10/09
First, scientists DO NOT state that over an infinite period of time anything that can happen will. If the universe was just a rock floating in space, then an infinite amount of time would cause no change whatsoever.
Second, the amount of time that has passed from the earliest RNA floating in the primordial ooze to now is ridiculously long. That is plenty of time for the huge number of duplications and mutations that took place to get where we are now.
You are essentially using the same argument that the universe must be made for us because the Earth is perfectly suited for our existence which is highly unlikely. Except that this utterly fails since if the Earth were different we would be different, and would still be making that claim. And the aliens on the other side of the galaxy are making that claim about their planet. Yet the planets that didn't evolve life are not making that claim, because they DIDN'T evolve life! #cyborgs
11/10/09
edit: if you're arguing about life evolving under different circumstances and therefore trying to say that the odds of evolution aren't really so small then you'd want to show some sort of evidence that this is the case. I don't know of any evidence of life evolving outside of earth.
11/10/09
11/11/09
11/11/09
Let me put it another way: yes, the odds of humans developing in exactly the way we have was amazingly unlikely, given the mindboggling number of small changes that were necessary for it to happen. But the chance of those small changes adding up to some sort of living organism over a few billion years (which is most definitely NOT "infinity") were pretty much 1.
The odds of you winning the lottery are "nearly statistically impossible". The odds of *someone* winning the lottery are pretty much 1. #cyborgs
11/11/09
11/12/09
Also an infinite universe is certainly not a logical impossibility (something caused the Big Bang, something caused that, something caused that, ad infinitum). The concept of "beginning" and "end" are entirely human, in reality things just change. #cyborgs
11/12/09
The difference is if we are scientifically evaluating physical processes we evaluate the realistic chance of such a process occuring since we couldn't actually observe it. We can observe processes like mutations and the chances they will be beneficial and the chances they will be passed on and the chances that they will even occur. We gather data and use that data to evaluate theories and the data gathered makes it highly unlikely that evolution could have occurred and if it did occur it would have taken a nearly infinite amount of time to occur. If you are logically evaluating your options you wouldn't logically arrive at the solution that has the least probable chance of occurring. #cyborgs
11/12/09
11/13/09
here is an article about what you're talking about. Google pulls it up on the top.
[www.dhbailey.com]
"it is extremely unlikely that a random roll-of-the-dice assemblage of water molecules would assemble a single snowflake with a specific designated structure. And yet this phenomenon is repeated trillions of times in a typical snowstorm."
If a scientist would like to apply this principal to evolution I would simply request a demonstration of where else in the universe such a "long series of aggregations, each acting under known physical laws of atomic interactions," has produced any form of life. We can see millions of snowflakes if we go outside during a winter storm. We cannot however show that evolution could provide another type of life or in this example a different snowflake. We know only of one snowflake and lots of dead empty space. So in that case I ask you what are the odds of a snowflake forming in Texas in August? #cyborgs
11/13/09
For the planets of the universe to compare to snowflakes in a storm, one would have to be the size of an atom sitting on the edge of one of those snowflakes. Ask that atom if there are any other snowflakes out there and it will laugh at you and say of course not, at least none that I can see!
Just because something only occurs in rare circumstances (a planet forming the proper distance from the sun, with the right chemicals, etc.) does not mean that it never occurs, particularly in the case of something as huge as the universe, and the fact that we keep finding more and more and more planets. Our field of view is miniscule compared to the universe, and we don't even know if the universe is spatially finite or not.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And as I already said, there is more and more evidence for a large number of planets of various types being out there.
I love that you posted a link that supports my argument by the way. Read it again if you don't get why probability is just not a good argument against evolution.
11/13/09
But, my whole argument here at the begging which is the point which seems to have been yielded to me by a lack of rebuttal is that time and the universe are finite and in a finite universe belief in a highly improbable scenario is illogical. The article is making the point that there are nearly limitless potential outcomes of evolution of which this world is only one permutation but this is purely conjecture with no examples to back it up. #cyborgs
11/09/09
lol #cyborgs
11/09/09
I disagree.
Personally, I think the ultimate feat of evolution is the shark. Specifically, Carcaradon carcharias, better known as a Great White. Think about it.
Mr. Lam, what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that's all.
Now, why don't you take a long, close look at this sign... #cyborgs