3 ms·
The problem isn’t generating something with a certain body plan, I agree that is easy. The problem is achieving a design without common or significant mechanica
by pfannkuchen 3y ago
The problem isn’t generating something with a certain body plan, I agree that is easy. The problem is achieving a design without common or significant mechanical problems over the lifespan of the organism. Can we assert that, in your example, animals with extra limbs don’t have problems on par with the back or knee problems of bipeds? I don’t think we can?
- adrian_b 3y agoIt is very unlikely that predictable genetic engineering for animals will become possible earlier than twenty years from now and a time between 50 years and 100 years from now seems most likely. We are still very far from completely understanding how a single nucleated (eukaryotic) cell works. After understanding a cell we should first be able to completely understand simpler multi-cellular living beings like fungi and plants. The animals are the most complex and there is no doubt that they will be the last for which it will become possible to change some genes and then predict with certainty what kind of animal will develop from such a modified cell. In any case, when that will happen it will be possible to design the body of an animal, within certain constraints, like we design now any complex machine. Bad designs will always remain possible, but good designs should easy avoid mechanical problems in the legs. By that time the simulation possibilities should be much better than today.