OT: Extended theory of evolution.

I'm absolutely sure that I don't understand any of it. But in the introduction, it mentions NASA's definition of life. This was new to me, but on searching for further information I came across an interesting page at

. The creation date of that page doesn't appear, but it's obviously after NASA first stated their definition. What amused me was the final paragraph (which predates the NASA definition), and perhaps shows the sort of pitfalls this area provides even for "experts":

"What is the definition of life? I remember a conference of the scientific elite that sought to answer that question. Is an enzyme alive? Is a virus alive? Is a cell alive? After many hours of launching promising balloons that defined life in a sentence, followed by equally conclusive punctures of these balloons, a solution seemed at hand: “The ability to reproduce—that is the essential characteristic of life,” said one statesman of science. Everyone nodded in agreement that the essential of a life was the ability to reproduce, until one small voice was heard. “Then one rabbit is dead. Two rabbits—a male and female—are alive but either one alone is dead.” - Daniel E Koshland, The Seven Pillars of Life (NB the link at the end of that ends up at a 404. More info in the wiki at

)

<https://roaring.earth/all-female-lizard-species/>

And, of course, aphids do reproduce asexually to the extent that some aphids are born pregnant.

Then there's Diploscapter Pachys, which hasn’t had sex in roughly

18 million years, when it parted from its parent species by exclusively practicing asexual reproduction.

And defining what the terms "race" and "gender" mean in an absolute way face similar ontological problems to coming up with an unambiguous definition of the term "life."

Humans very much want to know what things "is", and this is a matter of great importance to humans. But Nature doesn't care at all what things "is."

It's of "great importance" to folks who have very rigid notions of "how things should be". But, to many (and increasingly more), it's just a <shrug>

I think many (all?) plants can reproduce (propagate) asexually. Even though that may not be the "intended" method of reproduction.

ISTR there is an extreme lack of diversity among banana trees (?)

It's often easier to say what something isn't than what something "is", a cloud is clearly not a person, and a person is clearly not a 1964 Impala.

Try to define what a person "is" though is more difficult

Their accomplishments + their relationships.

Human beings have two legs. Is a thalodomide victim or amputee a human being?

If I rest a cup of coffee on a stool, has it become a table?

No, it's still a cup of coffee! ;-)

Some plants are exclusively asexual, and some will use both sexual and asexual reproduction. But for many, I think it is more accurate to say that they are good at re-growing missing parts after injury - growing new plants from cuttings is not really "reproduction".

What we call "bananas" (and they are plants, not trees) are artificial and human-made - like many of our major crops, they are the result of massive-scale long-running selective breeding. Wild bananas have far more genetic diversity. Low genetic diversity within crop plants is a major problem, since it means a single virus, fungus, or other pathogen can wipe out entire crops.

If you want a banana-evolution related laugh, have a look here:

Yes, the commercial "Cavendish" strain, bred to satisfy supermarket customers and could not exist "in the wild". A bit like pedigree dogs bred to satisfy some random cosmetic criteria that are then subject to all sorts of inbred genetic conditions.

I think you have to be a member of Mensa to answer that one!!

The late /Sir/ Clive Sinclair was a hugely successful entrepreneur who revolutionised the calculator and home computer market in particular, and without whom you would probably not have anything remotely like the computers you have today.

He did have plenty of failures - some due to a disconnect between making technically good solutions without enough consideration of large commercial companies and their power to control markets, and some because his ideas were too early and the technology was not ready.

But you do not earn a knighthood for outstanding services to industry if you "don't have any other achievements to boast about" or "did quite a few clever things". The guy was responsible for a revolution first in the pocket calculator industry, then the home computer industry - making products that were a small fraction of the size and cost of the alternatives, outselling everyone else put together, and bringing computing to at least an order of magnitude more people than had ever heard it before.

He was eccentric, certainly, but he was a genius whom Britons can remember with pride as the UK sinks slowly into oblivion.

I was in Cambridge in the 80s, and can corroborate what Bill said.

People there had a /much/ better opinion of Acorn Computers (which later morphed into ARM).

But did you get the specific relevance and joke?

Rubbish. He produced cheaper home computer and handheld calculators than anybody else, but they were always at least little bit too cheap.

I don't see any of his "innovations" as opening up possibilities that weren't obvious to pretty everybody at the time

In Thatcher's Britain there were loads of knighthoods given to equally insignificant twerps.

He took the idea rather better realised in the Apple computer and made it even cheaper. I was a foundation subscriber to Byte - my wife was doing a post-doc at MIT at the time and thought that it was something that I would like, as indeed it was. Clive Sinclair was just one more of the people who latched onto those ideas

He wasn't any kind of genius. If there was a genius in that area in the UK in the late 1970's it was Andy Hopper. After Chris Curry fell out with Clive Sinclair , he set up Acorn Computers, which produce a rather better product, but looking at the subsequent history the good stuff seems to have come from Andy Hopper.

When I lived in Cambridge I knew David Johnson-Davies who was their software chief for a while, but got out when he could see one of their cash flow crises was coming up - probably the Christmas 1983 disaster. I was offered a job there when I moved to Cambridge, but Cambridge Instruments was prepared to pay my moving expenses and Acorn wasn't. I suspect that I was lucky.

Acorn designed far better computers, both software and hardware - anyone who has used a BBC Micro and a ZX Spectrum would be in no doubt which was technically superior. But the BBC cost 3 times as much as the spectrum - more, when you included buying a monitor instead of using an old TV. The Spectrum (and its predecessor the ZX 81) were at least an order of magnitude more popular as home computers - the BBC was primarily found in schools.

The engineers at Acorn were also geniuses, and also highly important to the British computer industry - but that does not in any way detract from Sinclair's achievements.

And Sinclair had a smarter business strategy - anyone could make software (and even hardware) for the Spectrum, while Acorn tried to keep control of everything themselves. If the Acorn folks had been more open, we'd be using the descendents of Acorn-compatible computers running MOS rather than IBM-compatible computers running DOS.

There are many reasons why Sinclair's computers are in the past, while ARM microcontrollers (but not Acorn computers) are ubiquitous today. But one thing you can be /very/ sure about, is that it is not because Clive Sinclair was a man with a high IQ and no other achievements!