which genome should be sequenced next

Evolution is about maximizing efficiency and reproducibility in a changing environment. Evolution is not working towards a higher state of being… instead its just trying to make something that will reproduce really REALLY WELL!

I would advice the reading of “The Blind Watchmaker” by Richard Dawkins, also read his best work ever “The Selfish Gene”
 
That use to reproduce well enough for its environment. Now its environment is dieing of and its going with it. You should look at the most successful organism in the world like nematodes, prokaryotes, algae, so forth.
 
i was just messing a bit with your statement for fun...


on the panda:

the giant panda has probably always been on the edge of evolutionary feasibility.

It is a specialist, and a specialist in something it is not particulary good at. It has to eat most of the day, since its digestive track has never really evolved with bamboo in mind. It's reproduction rate is probably low because the lack of easy resources.

now the environment is changing and it has to pay the price for the specialist strategy.

or something like that
 
Originally posted by pumpkinsaren'torange
in my opinion, that is tampering with the natural, progressive course of nature . what i mean is, maybe those endangered animals are supposed to become extinct...it's the process of evolution, the weak die out...the strong continue on. we might be in for a big mess on our hands if we start tampering with the intentions of nature itself. and, no, i'm not a tree hugger. i am just against willy, nilly cloning.
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I disagree with the first part of your post, Mapping a genome is not tampering, its cataloging. I see extinction as a property of evolution. Evolution has not direction, therefore, no organism is supposed to become extinct. I know that concept is cold to the touch. Here's a warm one. Two clans are battling to the death. At the end of the story the fittest survive. The other extinguishes. Looking back we found that one clan was physically inferior, but the other was intellectually inferior. The clan that survived was the physically superior. Now Let's change the ending. The intellectually superior survived, and did so long enough to naturally or with genetic manipulation improve their physical health beyond that of the rival clan.

I understand your statement, "...we might be in for a big mess if we start tampering...” I just don't believe that nature has intentions. I think it's more accurate to surmise that through billions of years of evolution, we've probably reached a state of stasis that could be considered stable.

There's a great episode in Star Trek Voyager in which we genetically create superior humans, but their immune system mistakes everyone else as a contamination to destroy. oops.

Is this a fair argument?
 
That was "Star Trek: Next generation" stupid :p Just messing with you

Anyways very nice statement above. Personally I am totally for genetic engineering, biorobotics and cybernetics. One can call up some moral problems with engineer designer babies in that these children have no choice of there own… but once the technology become available to manipulate the already live you can do what you want: I personally can’t wait to buy a new body… one with laser the shot out of my eyes!
 
Technology sped up advances in genetic engineering, but it's too slow for me. I want to see some remarkable stuff now, not when I'm 65.
 
There are two kinds of evolution: Lamarckian and Darwinian. Original when Darwinian came out most agreed that Lamarckian was false as an example of how nature evolves. The laws of Lamarckian evolution state that things evolve by will to change for improvement, such as to say that a man that becomes a bodybuilder will have muscular children or that giraffes have long necks because their ancestors kept stretching them higher. Lamarckian evolution obviously does not work in nature but it is a perfect example of how societies and technology evolves. Lamarckian evolution is also incredibly fast in comparison with Darwinian evolution. In fact as soon as we start genetically enhancing are selves we will no long be following the laws of Darwinian evolution but now be under Lamarckian, and we will evolve at a incredibly fast exponential rate! I personally believe that if there is now slow down in technological development there will be many competing new species of hominid by the end of this century!
 
Very eloquently spoken, wellcookedfetus. Speaking of how long darwinan evolution takes, do you know if there is anything published that describes the time required for specific evolutionary changes?
 
In Darwin’s case: Depends on how effective a trait is at increasing reproducibility. I don’t know about Lamarckian: I think that was based of some yet undefined constant or in technologies case a exponential vector
 
I want to engineer a wide variety of plants, suited for various climates and microclimates, efficient at bacterially symbiotic internal production and toleration for concentrated alcohol - for energy. Maybe develop the GuinnessTree along the way for fun. The serious purpose, though, would be to make the energy equation such that the heat required for prodigious distillation of pure ethanol could be bootstrapped. Note: better keep a good firebreak around each so-altered forest, field or pond.

And for our next trick, electrically conductive plant structures, which of course with further elaboration on photosynthesis become palm trees, pond scum, and roof moss you can plug your portable nanoassembler into for power. Very handy indeed.

Now, having a friendly miniature bengal tiger in your living room, or a wooly mammoth on your farm, or becoming ourselves capable of running faster than a jaguar, or orders of magnitude more intelligent, might be all in good fun eventually- but why not be practical first before we play. Why not meet every energy and food need in 20 years or less. All this competition for resources, division of wealth, hunger, irritability, jealosy, etc. has been such a drag. Let's get cracking, shall we?
 
Y4 I sp34k go0d
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