21 SEP 2011 by ideonexus

 Human Race Differences the Result of Sexual Selection

Most of the genetic differences between races are trivial. And yet others, those physical differences between a Japanese individual and a Finn, a Masai, and an Inuit, are striking. We have the interesting situation, then, that the overall differences in gene sequences between peoples are minor, yet those same groups show dramatic differences in a range of visually apparent traits, such as skin color, hair color, body form, and nose shape. These obvious physical differences are not characteris...
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Cultural norms in different societies probably shaped many of the physical differences we see between races today, different definitions of beauty.

01 JAN 2010 by ideonexus

 Alan Turing on Learning Machines

We cannot expect to find a good child-machine at the first attempt. One must experiment with teaching one such machine and see how well it learns. One can then try another and see if it is better or worse. There is an obvious connection between this process and evolution, by the identifications Structure of the child-machine = Hereditary material Changes of the child-machine = Mutations Natural selection = Judgement of the experimentor One may hope, however, that this process will be more e...
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