To: S100 who wrote (3386 ) 9/6/2001 1:23:14 AM From: Maurice Winn Read Replies (2) | Respond to *** Triple Witching ***IT . panix.com Bill Joy's concern wired.com Stephen Hawking's recommendation clinton4.nara.gov ...Because biological evolution is basically a random walk in the space of all genetic possibilities it has been very slow. The complexity, or number of bits of information that are coded in DNA is given roughly by the number of nucleic acids in the molecule. Each bit of information can be thought of as the answer to a yes no question. For the first two billion years or so the rate of increase in complexity must have been of the order of one bit of information every hundred years. The rate of increase of DNA complexity gradually rose to about one bit a year over the last few million years. But now we are at the beginning of a new era in which we will be able to increase the complexity of our DNA without having to wait for the slow process of biological evolution. There has been no significant change in human DNA in the last ten thousand years. But it is likely that we will be able to completely redesign it in the next thousand. Of course many people will say that genetic engineering on humans should be banned. But I rather doubt if they will be able to prevent it. Genetic engineering on plants and animals will be allowed for economic reasons and someone is bound to try it on humans. Unless we have a totalitarian world order, someone will design improved humans somewhere... >IT ? Which might REQUIRE improved CDNA and pdQ at that!
