In a message dated 5/8/2004 7:57:45 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> I suppose I'm glad I finished it, since the journey to the end was > entertaining enough; the characters were nicely drawn, and Bear > is "hard SF" so I feel like I learned a little too. But overall, I > felt like this one was overrated, based on the reviews I read when > it came out. > > I know we have some Bear fans here, so I'll just don my asbestos > suit now and cower in my bunker. :-) > > I was really disappointed. If one more person takes poor Chuck's name in vain like this I think I am going to throw up. The fundamental premise that the genome can store mutations for future use seem completely wrong headed. Genetic change is not good or bad in and of itself. It all depends on context. A trait that may be useful in environment A but disasterous in environment B. How does the genome "decide" when it useful to let out something new. And in the end what is this major change? To instantly know language (not one but all). But this completely misapprehends what language is. We aren't born with language but rather the ability to learn language. We do this over the first years of life. To be born with language is to be born with a fixed thing, an inflexible thing. How would the genome code such a thing. Is there a gene fore the word beanball? etc. This is a stupid book with plastic characters. f
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