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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Simon Conway Morris: "Aliens are likely to look and behave like us". - Less Wrong
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Comments (36)
Why is this folly worthy of our notice?
Conway Morris is best known as a champion of convergent evolution - and about that he makes a number of good points.
I doubt his views about aliens will be debunked in peer-reviewed journals - since aliens are currently a rather speculative concept.
Conway Morris gets a lot of ridicle for his theology. I find it hard to get people to discuss his main ideas - since they just look at the last chapter and conclude that he is nuts.
Anecdotally, I think an emerging consensus is that convergent evolution is more rare than we have thought. Based on genetic information, things that appear convergent are merely divergent from a really long time ago.
I posted an example of this somewhere below regarding animal eyes.
I find the readiness to find examples of convergent evolution based on apparent physical (rather than genetic) data somewhat akin to quack medicine's conjecture that a herb or plant structure that resembles a human body/organ had the ability to heal ailments of that organ. (example: http://proliberty.com/observer/20080704.htm)
"Convergent evolution" normally refers to a convergence of phenotypes - not genotypes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution
Eyes have lots of genetic homology and are therefore not convergent by your own definition. Link is somewhere below in another comment.
Sure. See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_examples_of_convergent_evolution
I take your point, but I wonder how many of these examples would reveal evidence ancient divergence if further genetic testing were done.
In any case, what's the average time line of the common ancestor between any two of these examples? I'm guessing on the order of hundreds of millions of years?
When you draw the timeline back farther to the origin of life itself (3.5 billion years) the corresponding likelihood that evolution takes produces something similar to the present goes down.
Although if origin of life on earth is through seeding, perhaps the OP could be more likely
Posting something suspect to allow the community to debunk it seems reasonable -- you yourself don't have to take notice, but let other people dismiss it for you. I suppose this could become a problem if people start asking the community to debunk outrageously stupid things as top level posts, but the karma incentives should work to minimize this. Personally, I'm prepared to blow my karma in order to get answers to things that I don't know.
I agree that in the site's current form, link sharing is often best relegated to the open thread.
Are we missing a January 2010 meta-thread or can I just not find it?
The January Open Thread is here.
No one has made a meta-thread for this month.
Meta-threads should be seasonal, not monthly (i.e. Winter 2010).