theChosen1 said:
Let me see if I understand your analogy:
Most discoveries remain in an extended state called "stasis" until they are discovered?
Ummmm, No... "Things" and "relationships" are discovered, not discoveries themselves. That's naïve circular reasoning. I think you may have meant to post that comment in the medical marijuana forum you mentioned you just joined? Just trying to help :)
To begin, I actually must say that I kind of like the confrontative approach you take here. That really is my style of scientific argument. However, when I tried that early on in my tenure at PF, all that got me was infractions and bans. So these days I'm trying hard "just to keep it to the facts, maam." That's why I said "good luck to you" in the last post, I didn't expect you to last long. Seeing as you're still here, I'm guessing that you may have immuned yourself from prosecution with that clever "New member introduction" thread that threw everyone sideways. Nice move. I'm going to remember that one
In any case, we'll see what happens. In the meantime, I will respond to your last post even though I said I wouldn't. Sorry gang, I can't resist
"Technology" is a species (in the analogy), and exhibits little net evolutionary change for most if it's geological history?
Not so much technology (as an analogy to a species) as general zeitgeists relating to our advancing knowledge of the physical world that surrounds us. The progression of physical science (as I see it) is one of a drip drip drip of accumulated empirical data that the "body science" assimilates into its
existing physical models, in the manner in which Jean Piaget uses the concept of "assimilation." This process is analogous to the "exhibits little net evolutionary change for most if it's geological history" portion of your comment above.
At some point the accumulation of this empirical data hits a threshold, a critical mass, whereby the zeitgeist of our perception of the universe bifurcates into a new one (like Einsteins relativity revolution). This is kind of like how incrementally or "linearly," as you like to say, adding heat to a pot of water doesn't seem to do much until the whole system bifurcates (phase changes) into a boiling state. Or, to use another analogy, how snow incrementally building on a ledge doesn't seem to do much until it bifurcates into an avalanche. In biology the increments are found in phenomena such as the gradual morphing of a fish fin into a crawling implement that takes some individuals out of the local lake whereby now they can only breed with each other on land. This bifurcation in biology is called "speciation," and it is what punctuated equlibria refers to.
But what I'm talking about is the physical process of discovery, and that is very much a linear dependent model. Copernicus to Galileo to Newton. Each man's greatness is dependent on the discoveries of the previous man. Linear dependency. That's how technology evolves.
That statement may be regarded as accurate on its face, but it's oversimplistic. Of course, new discoveries rely on older discoveries, but the very fact that we have iconic names in the vernacular of science implies that these are the individuals that gave us
discontinuous advances in in the state of the art of the science.
Please explain to me how the evolution of semiconductor technology is a punctuated equalibria.
Again, the OP's question didn't concern technology
per se, so I'm not going to discuss it in length, especially since you brought it up as an ad hoc example. The progression of technological advancement is more an engineering issue than it is a basic science issue, so they are not directly comparable. If they were, then we wouldn't be laughing about Michio Kaku's warp drives and time machines
Hope that answers your questions.