> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On
> Behalf Of Joshua Bell
[snip]
> It would make widespread destruction acceptable if we
> could capture
> the genomic variation of all affected species and document their
> ecological
> interactions such that we knew we could reconstruct it later.
Perhaps, but we're far, far from being able to do so. One thing that became
clear from the recent sequencing of the human genome is that the complexity
of the system is far greater than most suspected, with more layers of
indirection, so to speak.
But I also wouldn't assume that reduction of the genome alone would contain
all of the information carried by a species. A genome needs a context in
which to operate; some of the information may be encoded in the way the
genome interacts with what surrounds it.
> Actually, in an Egan-esque way, that's just groovy. It's the information
> that's the important thing. A simulated forest that captures
> every detail of
> the real forest is just as good.
Well, heck, the whole universe is just information, isn't it? ;-)
>
> So really, we just need scanning tunelling microscopes attached
> to the front
> of our bulldozers.
Even with the data, we probably need the system (at least one instance of
the creature, in its environment) on which to run the code, which I guess is
another way of saying the same thing as above.
Nick
