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Hawking Says Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution

movesguy sends us to The Daily Galaxy for comments by Stephen Hawking about how humans are evolving in a different way than any species before us. Quoting: "'At first, evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information. I think it is legitimate to take a broader view, and include externally transmitted information, as well as DNA, in the evolution of the human race,' Hawking said. In the last ten thousand years the human species has been in what Hawking calls, 'an external transmission phase,' where the internal record of information, handed down to succeeding generations in DNA, has not changed significantly. 'But the external record, in books, and other long lasting forms of storage,' Hawking says, 'has grown enormously. Some people would use the term evolution only for the internally transmitted genetic material, and would object to it being applied to information handed down externally. But I think that is too narrow a view. We are more than just our genes.'"

4 of 398 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdot sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    and it's all your fault.

    How CAN YOU sleep at night?

  2. Re:Anthropologists have been saying this for a whi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    and windows? we should be ashamed as mankind of that. it's clearly not the best mankind can do? we should be capable of doing better than windows, i am not saying Linux/OS X are any better but my god! Windows is truly horrific!

  3. Professor Hawking got there first! COOL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I have created a new equation to describe this phenomena and published it at my blog. Proof is as follows.

    3 + 5 = 8
    3 + 5 = âz
    3 + 5 = 8 or âz

    10
    12
    TF

    Try this with 3.14159 and see what happens! COOL, huh?

    Two variable random number generators plus a true false switch equals the basic building block of artificial intelligence. A three dimensional switch.

    A resistor works on a similar principle, it has three possible states, floating ground, ground or current.

    Current equals 1. Ground equals 0. Floating ground equals 0/1 or 1/0 or âz.

    Now combine the three dimensional switch with the two dimensional switch and start to link these switches together in a topological network and the ultimate decryption key is created. You just need enough Turing/Gibson swarm units.

    My blog is located at http://lifeoftheoutrider20.blogspot.com/

    Proof complete!

    Next!

  4. Re:Only honest discussions are useful. by c6gunner · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Well, if a pilot told me that most aircraft are actually flown by blind gophers on LSD, I'd tell him to fuck off, too.

    Some claims can be substantiated with an Argument From Authority - others can not. That's why when "Dr." Stephen Jones tells me that he's found "thermate residue" in the wreckage of the twin towers, I can laugh in his face and say "that's rust and sulfur, you fucking moron!". The fact that he has the letters "PhD" beside his name doesn't necessarily mean that he has any clue what he's talking about. Some claims are just retarded and wrong (aka "unsupported"), regardless of how many degrees their proponents manage to accrue. That's the whole reason behind the peer-review process.