080605 - Monkeys and Badgers.
I'm an engineer. I'm all about things working - making them work, figuring out how they work, things like that.
I'm a decent engineer, which means I'm just on the cusp of knowing how to make things work and knowing what's possible to do. I have a history with this.
So, when I hear about the idea of setting up a dead badger as a server, I think to myself, "Well, if Attack of the Show can put a server in a guy's ass, then someone could probably do it in a dead badger. Get it embalmed, take out the guts, install a small power supply, etc..." Not entirely practical, but do-able. People have done dumber things.
Which makes it all the more disappointing when I read on and realize that it's a joke.
It makes the engineer in me want to say, "You know, you could set up a dead badger server. All you have to do is..."
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I think the low-level national debate about intelligent design v. evolution is interesting, not so much on its face, but because it reminds me a lot of the global warming debate. In both, the question is not so much about the scientific facts - the Earth is definitely heating up, and evolution, as an organizing principle, does occur - but instead about the causes behind them. Global warming advocates say it's because of man-made gasses; detractors say it's part of a normal cycle. Evolution advocates say random chance and natural selection drive evolution; ID advocates say a divine hand is leading the way down the proper reproductive roads. Both sides accuse the other of being pig-headed and illogical, and most of the public doesn't understand the complexity of the argument anyway.
With global warming, though, incontrovertible proof is hard to find - good climatology and geology exist on both sides of the argument. The more I think about it, though, I don't think ID is going to be quite so lucky. Aside from the "DUH" arguments against it, I think ID can be (dis)proven scientifically.
If there is a guiding hand, it affects evolution at two points: hooking up the right people in the first place, and then getting the proper gametes to match up after the horizontal tango. The guiding force of the first one is so broad and random that it can't be analyzed. With today's neat-o DNA analysis, though, the second one can. With evolution, what we would expect to see is that parents generally produce kids that are the average of their combined genes, with a good mix of the good and bad of both. (Of course, this doesn't always happen, but it's a statistical process - there are always outliers.) With ID, though, one would expect to see definitive trending of traits that can't be attributed to natural selection. There would be additional, unnecessary complexity; people everywhere, not just in certain towns or nations, would begin developing particular traits that can't be explained by local variation. And, if ID really is true, this trending should be significant enough to be noticed, even with the glacial pace of evolution. Otherwise, the supposed guiding hand gets lost in the static.
So, it's out there. There's a way to prove it. And I'd suggest to ID advocates that if their idea is important enough to try to shoe-horn it into science curricula around the country, it's important enough to dump their money into researching it. Best of luck.
And, on that note - even monkeys can do economics.