[ExI] Evolution

[Ben]

On 23/05/2020 14:38, John K Clark wrote:
> On Sat, May 23, 2020 at 5:22 AM Ben via extropy-chat 
> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org 
> <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>> wrote:
>
>     /> This is why no-one has made more than trivial progress with
>     genetic engineering to produce novel features. People talk
>     excitedly about using CRISPR to give people things like an extra
>     thumb, or extend our vision into the ultraviolet. We have no  clue
>     how to do things like this,/
>
>
> Well, we know how to make macro changes in fruit flies, such as 
> sprouting antennas from their eyes, and to make flies that have no 
> eyes at all, and to make a extra pair of legs grow out of the head. 
> Fruit flies have 14,000 genes while humans only have slightly more, 
> 24,000.

I think it's more accurate to say that we stumbled upon how to do these 
things through experimentation (why would anyone set out to deliberately 
do the things you described? They're not exactly obvious goals). I'm 
fairly certain that if you asked a fruit fly genetic researcher how to 
give them tentacles, they'd be stumped. We're still at the stage of 
breaking things to see what happens. Designing new features from scratch 
is a completely different proposition.

-- 
Ben Zaiboc

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