3 ms·

A Proposed Framework for Cellular Evolution

9 points by yters 8y ago

hyperion2010 8y ago
In case anyone is wondering about the Blythe Institute, it looks like it is an organization that supports and attempts to promulgate intelligent design. This would explain why this paper has no references despite the fact that it retreads ideas that have been discussed in the evolutionary biology community for at least half a century.
- yters 8y ago
  Editor here. Thank you for the helpful feedback regarding the references. For further information about the goals of the journal, please see our Editors note. https://journals.blythinstitute.org/ojs/index.php/cbi/article/view/26/27 https://journals.blythinstitute.org/ojs/index.php/cbi/articl... We are interested in non-reductive approaches to science and related areas such as mathematics and economics.
selestify 8y ago
From a software perspective, I don't believe you can deduce the development process of a software project from the dependencies and interfaces alone. Just because many websites these days have a heavy database dependency doesn't mean that websites evolved out of databases; initial websites were just static HTML content, and eventually websites started adding databases as a dependency to generate dynamic HTML content.
- ngcc_hk 8y ago
  Good analogy
hyperpallium 8y ago
The pdf has proper fonts (d/l link top right https://journals.blythinstitute.org/ojs/index.php/cbi/article/download/27/28/ https://journals.blythinstitute.org/ojs/index.php/cbi/articl...) I've only skimmed it, would appreciate a tl;dr. The non-evolvability of interfaces reminds me of Parnas' famous On the Criteria To Be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules (https://www.win.tue.nl/~wstomv/edu/2ip30/references/criteria_for_modularization.pdf https://www.win.tue.nl/~wstomv/edu/2ip30/references/criteria...), where you choose variant modules demarcated by invariant interfaces, such that the evolution you anticpate will occur within the modules. This approach is great, until it turns out your choice of interfaces was wrong because you are terrible at predicting the future... but because of the dependencies on them, change is difficult. Dependencies ossify. All you can do is rewrite from scratch.
- maxpetis 8y ago
  This was first really seen by people saying that Black people of Africa are much closer in evolution to the ape than white people, that we evolved from different branches or that blacks evolved much later than us.https://www.primeassignment.com https://www.primeassignment.com
baking 8y ago
I find the phrase "ontology reflects phylogeny" in the abstract to be a bit odd. The original formulation was “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” and Stephen Jay Gould has written a book on the history of the idea, so I'm not sure if the revision is intentional or due to sloppiness.
johnnyb_61820 8y ago
For those wanting a TL;DR: The main suggestions by the author are in section 2. Essentially, it says that modularity allows any errors to be contained, conserved design-by-contract interfaces allows for system expansion, and encapsulation allows for new layers to evolve more freely while older systems stay conserved.

9 points by yters 8y ago

hyperion2010 8y ago

In case anyone is wondering about the Blythe Institute, it looks like it is an organization that supports and attempts to promulgate intelligent design. This would explain why this paper has no references despite the fact that it retreads ideas that have been discussed in the evolutionary biology community for at least half a century.

yters 8y ago
Editor here. Thank you for the helpful feedback regarding the references. For further information about the goals of the journal, please see our Editors note. https://journals.blythinstitute.org/ojs/index.php/cbi/article/view/26/27 https://journals.blythinstitute.org/ojs/index.php/cbi/articl... We are interested in non-reductive approaches to science and related areas such as mathematics and economics.

selestify 8y ago

From a software perspective, I don't believe you can deduce the development process of a software project from the dependencies and interfaces alone. Just because many websites these days have a heavy database dependency doesn't mean that websites evolved out of databases; initial websites were just static HTML content, and eventually websites started adding databases as a dependency to generate dynamic HTML content.

ngcc_hk 8y ago
Good analogy

hyperpallium 8y ago

The pdf has proper fonts (d/l link top right https://journals.blythinstitute.org/ojs/index.php/cbi/article/download/27/28/ https://journals.blythinstitute.org/ojs/index.php/cbi/articl...) I've only skimmed it, would appreciate a tl;dr. The non-evolvability of interfaces reminds me of Parnas' famous On the Criteria To Be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules (https://www.win.tue.nl/~wstomv/edu/2ip30/references/criteria_for_modularization.pdf https://www.win.tue.nl/~wstomv/edu/2ip30/references/criteria...), where you choose variant modules demarcated by invariant interfaces, such that the evolution you anticpate will occur within the modules. This approach is great, until it turns out your choice of interfaces was wrong because you are terrible at predicting the future... but because of the dependencies on them, change is difficult. Dependencies ossify. All you can do is rewrite from scratch.

maxpetis 8y ago
This was first really seen by people saying that Black people of Africa are much closer in evolution to the ape than white people, that we evolved from different branches or that blacks evolved much later than us.https://www.primeassignment.com https://www.primeassignment.com

baking 8y ago

I find the phrase "ontology reflects phylogeny" in the abstract to be a bit odd. The original formulation was “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” and Stephen Jay Gould has written a book on the history of the idea, so I'm not sure if the revision is intentional or due to sloppiness.

johnnyb_61820 8y ago

For those wanting a TL;DR: The main suggestions by the author are in section 2. Essentially, it says that modularity allows any errors to be contained, conserved design-by-contract interfaces allows for system expansion, and encapsulation allows for new layers to evolve more freely while older systems stay conserved.