Re: The HP Way

On Mon, 11 Sep 2006 17:08:48 +0100, John Woodgate
<jmw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In message <u6vag21n6ndkh61ijhbqm5ieqqcm958lgt@xxxxxxx>, dated Mon, 11
Sep 2006, John Larkin <jjlarkin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
writes

How can you know, even using your definition of "mutation", that
mutations are always random?

There is no evidence that they are anything other. Occam's Razor.

Why aren't we still using crystal sets? They're simple.

But if
the proteome is shown to be able to cause changes in the DNA of germ
cells, thus providing a path for 'inheritance of acquired
characteristics', so be it. That doesn't change anything much; it's
certainly not radical.

That's only one of many plausible mechanisms, and many more
implausible ones.


It certainly doesn't make sense that they should be.

Things don't have to make sense, and what makes sense varies with the
person sensing. For most people, quantum entanglement doesn't make
sense, but for some, it does. It makes perfect sense that radiation,
chemicals and copying errors can create random changes in DNA.

And it makes perfect sense that DNA should itself include redundancy
and should encode repair mechanisms to cancel most or maybe even all
of those random changes.

You don't redesign circuits boards by firing bullets at them. Well, I
don't.

More generally - and this applies to electronic design - when someone
declares, with little or no justification, that something is
impossible, it's because they want it to be impossible. So, for them,
it becomes impossible. I don't hire people who think this way.

John

.

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