"God, Stephen Wolfram, and Everything Else"
by Michael S. Malone, Forbes ASAP, 11-27-00
forbes.com
A go-between brings Malone to the interview on a circuitous route to protect Wolfram's privacy. Wolfram's "New Kind of Science" is based on his studies of cellular automata and the mathematical rules governing their behavior. Here's his take on evolution:
In other words, you don't need natural selection to pare down evolution to a few robust forms. Rather, organisms evolve outward to fill all the possible forms available to them by the rules of cellular automata. Complexity is destiny--and Darwin becomes a footnote. "I've come to believe," says Wolfram, "that natural selection is not all that important."
After a decade of searching for confirmation in the natural world, he's got... the Textile Cone Shell. However, considering that he's spent much of his free time at a computer in his upstairs office, that's understandable. The book is four years late and has swelled to 1200 pages, but maybe it'll be out by next summer. Sounds like it will make good beach reading.
The Amazon.com Sales Rank is already < 300 on advance orders !!!
"Simpleisassimpledoes."
WT |
