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Author
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Topic: Wheels of Life
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Mike Gene
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Member # 149
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posted 22. June 2003 23:23
Charlie: So you expect cells to look like Paley's watch, but not really like Paley's watch.
Exactly. It would be absurd to expect a cell to look exactly like a watch. Thus, the cell will approximate Paley’s watch and developing themes in cell biology bear this out. The question is whether the differences can be attributed to the three distinctions I highlight or simply reflect the fact that the cell was spawned from the Earth.
Cellular mechanisms are going to become obviously technological, but not really the "technology" we are used to.
Not surprising given that the technology we are used to is incapable of designing cells. The key is the degree of overlap and the significance of differences.
In fact, it seems that anything would qualify as technology as long as it is "a complex-looking thing that does something reasonably well". That ain't much of a stretch for a prediction, then.
Except that “complex-looking thing that does something reasonably well” is insufficient for predicting more wheels, even hypothetical class known as molecular threaders. What’s more, I also explained the developing picture to Pim:
quote:
Originally DNA replication was the function of an enzyme. Then it was a function of enzymes. Then molecular machines. Now factories of anchored machines. The MCM wheels now add a conveyer belt analog to the picture!
That’s more than “complex-looking thing that does something reasonably well.” That stage existed when DNA was thought to be synthesized by a bunch of enzymes. Heck, that stage existed with the bag of soup.
Well, that's my quota for the day. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
PS: Charlie says to John – We don't do that, because we build from the top down (and eliminate noise when we find it - it's much easier to engineer that way).
Yet an approach that differs from the idealized bottom-up approach sought after by nanotechnologists
[ 22. June 2003, 23:30: Message edited by: Mike Gene ]
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RBH
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Member # 380
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posted 23. June 2003 02:28
I don't want to sidetrack this thread (if indeed it has a track), but I couldn't help noticing Mike Gene's remarks about assumptions about the designer(s): quote:
GP cites Holliday about there being no constraints on an imagined all-powerful creator. He also wants minimal hypotheticals about the designers. Yet it's the hypotheticals that create the methodological constraints. For example, I assume that the designers are not trying to intentionally communicate with human beings through their designs. Nothing was designed to get us to laugh or instill a sense of awe. One expression of communication would be deception. Thus, because of this assumption, I am constrained from using the existence of pseudogenes as evidence of a deceptive designer. Another assumption is that the designers were bioengineers and not artists. This assumption puts massive constraints on my views. Because pseudogenes are non-functional, I cannot attribute them directly to design. I cannot explain some biological feature as the artistic whim of a designer.
I found that of no little interest given Mike's previous objections to my proposal that examination of designs could potentially provide information about the nature of the putative designers. He was eloquent in his characterization of Multiple Designers Theory as "designer-centric." Criticizing my MDT sketch, he wrote quote:
Yet you provide no map to get from the designed feature to the psychology of the designer.
In the present thread he wrote quote:
If I were to minimize my dependence on the model of the engineer, I could attribute biological features to artistic design. I could likewise attribute non-functional or hodgepode, jury-rigged, sloppy conglomerations to a intelligent designer. Are you suggesting this is a better approach?
One might ask why he makes the assumption that "the designers were bioengineers and not artists"? Why not ask the data that question? What would one expect to see in biological structures and processes if the designers were artists as well as bioengineers (or bioengineers in service of artists), versus the expectation if they were 'just' bioengineers? MDT at least holds out the possibility (with some suggested methodological directions) of going past the mere detection of design.
The point is more general than Mike's assumptions about artists and bioengineers. His assumptions at least are explicit. Yet any notion of intelligent design in biology must make assumptions, tacit or explicit, about the nature, purpose(s), and capabilities of the designing agent(s). The claim by Dembski, among others, that ID as a "scientific" enterprise is confined to just design detection is necessarily false, because the very properties that Dembski's design detection methodology depends upon embody assumptions about the designing and manufacturing agency(ies). A design absent some sort of manufacturing capability is a vacuous notion: Designs must be realized in matter and energy in order for the various detection methods to operate. Thus even the bare attempt to detect design must make assumptions about the designer in several areas, not least with respect to cognitive (engineering) capabilities and crafting (manufacturing) skills.
RBH
[ 23. June 2003, 02:30: Message edited by: RBH ]
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Jack
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Member # 265
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posted 23. June 2003 13:09
Hi Mike,
The Last sentence of the following paragraph is not completed. Can you remember what you were going to say?
GP cites Holliday about there being no constraints on an imagined all-powerful creator. He also wants minimal hypotheticals about the designers. Yet it’s the hypotheticals that create the methodological constraints. For example, I assume that the designers are not trying to intentionally communicate with human beings through their designs. Nothing was designed to get us to laugh or instill a sense of awe. One expression of communication would be deception. Thus, because of this assumption, I am constrained from using the existence of pseudogenes as evidence of a deceptive designer. Another assumption is that the designers were bioengineers and not artists. This assumption puts massive constraints on my views. Because pseudogenes are non-functional, I cannot attribute them directly to design. I cannot explain some biological feature as the artistic whim of a designer. I also seek to
[ 23. June 2003, 13:11: Message edited by: Jack ]
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Mike Gene
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Member # 149
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posted 23. June 2003 18:41
RBH,
I consider your methodology designer-centric because it is focused on gathering information about the designers . That’s the whole purpose for doing the investigation. That is, you look for patterns in nature that ultimately will allow us to count designers. My approach makes a few assumptions about the designers in order to determine if patterns exist in biology (patterns that come into focus as a function of those assumptions; good old “if, then” reasoning). Thus, my focus is on gathering information about the designs. That is, I look for patterns in nature that ultimately allow us to better understand biology.
However, since the concept of design is entangled with the concept of a designer (how does one have one without the other), I agree that assumptions about designers are entailed in a design approach. But it’s a question of emphasis and where it is laid. This is not a black and white situation (very few things are).
You write: One might ask why he makes the assumption that "the designers were bioengineers and not artists"?
It’s a methodological constraint that follows from a hypothesis – the hypothesis that life was bioengineered. The things that tweaked my design suspicions in the first place are those things that reflect technology. It is only natural to follow-up these suspicions to determine if the pattern solidifies or evaporates. In other words, I am not out to develop a generic method that detects all forms of design. I am following up a rather specific hypothesis that revolves around a design event.
My assumptions may be bogus, in which case, my approach delivers false negatives. If the assumptions are valid, it helps to prevent false positives. I suppose it’s my humble attempt to take a conservative approach to design. In fact, one could argue that art is inherently more subjective than engineering.
Why not ask the data that question? What would one expect to see in biological structures and processes if the designers were artists as well as bioengineers (or bioengineers in service of artists), versus the expectation if they were 'just' bioengineers?
Anyone is free to ask those questions. I have never represented my approach as the one and only approach to design. In fact, there are different ways to go about this topic.
MDT at least holds out the possibility (with some suggested methodological directions) of going past the mere detection of design.
My approach has already moved beyond this realm of the possibility and has delivered things past the mere detection of design. I stick with the approach because of the fact that it is gradually developing a modest track record of success. As I mentioned before, I encourage you to develop your thesis of MDT. Just don’t demand that others likewise approach things as you do and criticize them for not approaching things as you do.
Jack,
Oops. I lost my track of thinking there and can't get a handle on what I was going to say. Perhaps it will come to me later.
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charlie d.
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Member # 159
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posted 23. June 2003 19:56
quote:
Except that “complex-looking thing that does something reasonably well” is insufficient for predicting more wheels, even hypothetical class known as molecular threaders.
Ah, but we can tell wheels, because we make them. Similarly, some could say that fish seem to be bioengineered with aquadynamic principles very similar to submarines, but you will agree that this is just the product of the constraints of the environment in which fish have to propel themselves.
Things become a little more tricky when you encounter a molecular protonic snorfblatt: how would you know that looks just like an engineered thing, if not by the circular reasoning of saying: "If I had to build a molecular protonic snorfblatt, that's how I'd make one"? (Because, of course, that's a complex-looking thing that works reasonably well as a molecular protonic snorfblatt)
[ 23. June 2003, 19:57: Message edited by: charlie d. ]
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Rex Kerr
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Member # 632
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posted 23. June 2003 21:13
Mike, I think wings and lungs and eyes and brains are good examples of macroscale design. Yet these differ from lasers, RF antennas, and wheels in an important respect: you can build the former up from simpler structures, while the latter seem substantially less amenable to this.
I see no reason why a macroscale wheel couldn't be part of a normal developmental process. Likewise, we deposit calcium in our bones; why not iron in a RF antenna? The absence of these structures is consistent with evolution, or with a designer who set things up early and then left them to run for a very long time. But it's puzzling that an active, intimately involved designer would avoid using such things in designs--human designers certainly manage to make things that don't work at all until you get to a very complex level (fusion, lasers, fission bombs, etc.).
But if this is an issue only of teleology vs. non-teleology, it seems as though experimental methods to address the question may be difficult--you seem to be suggesting that teleological design plus evolution may look an awful lot like non-design.
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Nel
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Member # 614
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posted 23. June 2003 23:02
I think there is good design reason for why we see wheels at the nanoscale and not at the macroscale. If the designer(s) had worked with a paved planet then wheels at the macroscopic level would have been useful and their absence would have been puzzling. However, wheels are pretty much useless in most environments, like desserts.
[ 23. June 2003, 23:17: Message edited by: Nelson_Alonso ]
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charlie d.
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Member # 159
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posted 24. June 2003 07:26
Well, I wouldn't say desserts are useless in most environments: frozen treats are certainly useful in hot climates, and hot cocoa comes in handy at sub-freezing temperatures! ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
[ 24. June 2003, 07:27: Message edited by: charlie d. ]
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Argon
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Member # 276
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posted 24. June 2003 09:21
Nelson_Alonso writes:
quote:
However, wheels are pretty much useless in most environments, like desserts.
But they're pretty good in water: Paddle boats, for instance. And propellers work well in water and in air.
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yersinia
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Member # 324
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posted 24. June 2003 14:38
Sorry I missed this discussion, but in case it wasn't mentioned, the Bioessays article (marginal IMO) was discussed over here a few weeks ago:
Creationism and the Wheel
...there are some good links etc. My main point in the discussion was that the difference between macro-wheels and micro-wheels is the presence of blood vessels, nerves, etc. at the macro-scale which would get horribly twisted, which provided the rationale for Haldane's "evolution can't make wheels" argument (back in 1953 I think). Dawkins pointed out some time ago that blood vessels aren't a problem at the micro-scale:
quote:
Why don’t animals have wheels?
by Richard Dawkins
Article in The Sunday Times, November 24th 1996
link
[...]
Now I must mention that there is one revealing exception to my premiss. Some very small creatures have evolved the wheel in the fullest sense of the word. One of the first locomotor devices ever evolved may have been the wheel, given that for most of its first two billion years, life consisted of nothing but bacteria (and, to this day, not only are most individual organisms bacteria, even in our own bodies bacterial cells greatly outnumber our ‘own’ cells).
Many bacteria swim using threadlike spiral propellors, each driven by its own continuously rotating propellor shaft. It used to be thought that these ‘flagella’ were wagged like tails, the appearance of spiral rotation resulting from a wave of motion passing along the length of the flagellum, as in a wriggling snake. The truth is much more remarkable. The bacterial flagellum is attached to a shaft which, driven by a tiny molecular engine, rotates freely and indefinitely in a hole that runs through the cell wall.
Picture (see suggestions faxed separately to Jeremy Bayston)
The fact that only very small creatures have evolved the wheel suggests what may be the most plausible reason why larger creatures have not. It’s a rather mundane, practical reason, but it is nonetheless important. A large creature would need large wheels which, unlike manmade wheels, would have to grow in situ rather than being separately fashioned out of dead materials and then mounted. For a large, living organ, growth in situ demands blood or something equivalent. The problem of supplying a freely rotating organ with blood vessels (not to mention nerves) that don’t tie themselves in knots is too vivid to need spelling out!
Human engineers might suggest running concentric ducts to carry blood through the middle of the axle into the middle of the wheel. But what would the evolutionary intermediates have looked like? Evolutionary improvement is like climbing a mountain (“Mount Improbable”). You can’t jump from the bottom of a cliff to the top in a single leap. Sudden, precipitous change is an option for engineers, but in wild nature the summit of Mount Improbable can be reached only if a gradual ramp upwards from a given starting point can be found. The wheel may be one of those cases where the engineering solution can be seen in plain view, yet be unattainable in evolution because its lies the other side of a deep valley, cutting unbridgeably across the massif of Mount Improbable.
Plus, another good point made in the thread was that even at the macro-scale, "wheels" of a sort *have* evolved, when blood-vessels etc. were not a factor. Namely, when the whole organism rolls:
As Dave Barry might say, I Did Not Make This Up.
A study of rolling salamanders and of this behavior in the context of other salamander body-curling-type behaviors is here:
Garcia-Paris, M., et al., 1995, ‘A novel antipredator mechanism in salamanders: rolling escape in Hydromantes platycephalus’. J. Herp. 29(1):149-151.
PDF: http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~deban/salaroll.pdf
[ 24. June 2003, 14:40: Message edited by: yersinia ]
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Jack Foster
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posted 24. June 2003 18:57
Some thoughtful points provided by Dawkins, but it should be pointed out that other macro-scale features like horns and armor don't require vessels or nerves. Dawkins asks this question for the macro-scale wheel:
"But what would the evolutionary intermediates have looked like?"
The same question remains in play for the micro-wheel.
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Jack Foster
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posted 24. June 2003 19:03
Hi Rex:
quote:
But if this is an issue only of teleology vs. non-teleology, it seems as though experimental methods to address the question may be difficult--you seem to be suggesting that teleological design plus evolution may look an awful lot like non-design.
With this statement, you're assuming that which remains in question. Provide any example of non-design other than biological evolution, where the result looks like teleological design plus evolution. All other evolutionary systems of which I am aware are indeed of this latter category. Are you aware of any non-biological evolutionary system that is not a product of teleological design?
[ 24. June 2003, 19:05: Message edited by: Jack Foster ]
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RBH
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posted 24. June 2003 21:35
Jack asked whether there are any non-biological evolutionary systems that are non-teleological. I may be missing Jack's import or meaning, but I'd suggest some of the hardware evolution studies discussed on ARN and in papers here and here. While they are "teleological" in the sense that humans set up the experimental evolutionary systems for study, their outcomes are controlled by random mutations and selection. And as has been noted elswhere, they produce outcomes that are not what humans would design for the same tasks, but that nevertheless perform those tasks, sometimes in ways that the humans who set up the study cannot themselves understand.
I hope we don't have to rehash the "if humans define the fitness function for an experimental study whatever happens in the study is teleological" doodah yet again. I'm not enthused about that because I think it's a red herring. The principal result of interest from the hardware evolution work is that given an environment that rewards some functionality and given some standard evolutionary operators, hardware evolves novel ways of performing that function. And that outcome is independent of whether the selective environment was imposed by humans interested in studying evolution or by the 'natural' world.
RBH
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Mike Gene
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posted 24. June 2003 22:27
Charlie,
The point remains that the criteria, “complex-looking thing that does something reasonably well,” is insufficient for predicting more wheels, even hypothetical class known as molecular threaders. If it’s simply about complex-looking things to do something reasonably well, a bag of biomolecular soup would qualify. Yet if this original perspective of the cell turned out to be correct, I would not have the same degree of suspicion about design.
As for detecting wheels because we make them, that’s the point. As long as our design science overlaps with the design science of the cell’s designers, detection remains possible. If something about the cell was modeled after “moleculat protonic snorflblatts, there would be no overlap and we’d thus score a false negative or miss an important part of the picture. My design approach does not promise to deliver the Whole Truth about things.
As for fish and aquadynamic principles, are you suggesting there is something about environmental constraints that imposes wheels into cells? The flagellum is a great example, as we are often reminded that bacteria don’t need flagella to be motile. Clearly, “environmental constraints” didn’t impose the flagellar wheel on bacteria.
Rex,
You note that we can build lungs, eyes, and brains from simpler structures, but this is more difficult with lasers, RF antennas, and wheels. Yet unless you are suggesting that the designers should have designed a world without reproduction, and thus taken the responsibility for crafting each and every metazoan organism that has existed on this planet, you may have answered your own question. The developmental routine, that begins with a single cell, is an process that builds from simpler structures.
You see no reason why a macroscale wheel couldn't be part of a normal developmental process. But I see no reason why a macroscale wheel could be part of a normal developmental process. It would help if you could sit down and write out the developmental program (genes and all) that would craft this wheel. I realize this is a problem, as developmental processes are still largely a black box. But since your argument is built upon the assumption that metazoan embryology can build lasers and wheels, you should work to support this assumption rather than assert it.
The odd thing about this debate is the lack of human-like structures on the macroscale is supposed to count against ID, but the presence of human-like structures on the microscale does not count for ID. I’m willing to agree that the lack of human-like structures on the macroscale works against ID at this level. Are my critics willing to agree that the presence of human-like structures on the microscale count for ID at this level. Of course not.
It’s a strange state of affairs. The problem on the cellular level is that the design is not exactly like something we design. But would a rabbit with something like an RF antenna sticking out of its head and lasers beams coming out of its eyes be exactly like something we design?
Of course, if we ever find a macroscale wheel on some creature (or fossil), does anyone really think the critics of design are suddenly going to admit this is best explained by design? I think the argument would change as follows.
Holliday speaking when there are no large-scale creatures with wheels:
quote:
The wheel is a manufactured object that can only function when it is complete. One cannot use a quarter or a half of the wheel; indeed they would be an impediment to any animal. Therefore one cannot evolve a wheel in multiple
stages.
But after such an example would be found, Holliday’s argument would become one of those “unimaginative creationist arguments”. People would point to the various balls and discs that are part of biology. It would be said that half-wheels could be serve as architectural platforms or some kind of covering that protected a limb. Etc.
Finally, you write: But if this is an issue only of teleology vs. non-teleology, it seems as though experimental methods to address the question may be difficult--you seem to be suggesting that teleological design plus evolution may look an awful lot like non-design.
It may be very difficult to experimentally “address the question.” But one option is to note that a purely non-teleological approach is not needed to investigate reality and one can adopt a teleological approach instead. Eventually, it may be helpful to compare the pay-off of both approaches, once we adjust for pragmatic considerations that may be unequal. But I don’t think teleological design plus evolution looks a lot like non-design. Perspectives often depend on expectations. And yes, it’s quite clear that non-teleologists expect design to present itself as something so sensational that no one can reasonably doubt its existence. Anything less that this doesn’t count. We need rabbits with RF antennas to communicate where the wolves are. Once found, the bunnies circle the wolf on their all terrain tires and blast it with laser beams coming from their eyes. Since such creatures do not exist, design is to be dismissed. But to me, it looks like a lot of middle ground has just been leapt over.
[ 24. June 2003, 22:29: Message edited by: Mike Gene ]
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Nel
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posted 24. June 2003 22:35
Argon writes:
quote:
But they're pretty good in water: Paddle boats, for instance. And propellers work well in water and in air.
I think that fish mechanism and bird mechanism is much more efficient as macro-scale machines for movement though. There was some engineering studies going on that I've read at Sci Am more than once about how engineers would rather mimic how fish swim
quote:
These vortices, the MIT group discovered, act together to propel a swimming fish through the water. The vortices are created as water drags along the side of the moving fish. What makes them so potent is the flapping tail, which flips each vortex off to the opposite side. Their spinning now combines to push a stream of water away from the fish -- making it, in effect, jet-propelled. This insight -- gained from studying live fish as well as the robot tuna -- is helping design of a new generation of swimming machines.
ALAN ALDA: This is a pike you've got here?
JOHN KUMPH: Yeah, it's a robopike. Which is based on a small pike, which is a freshwater predator, and they turn and swim and like start really well 'cos they hide in the mud and they come out and grab the little fish.
ALAN ALDA: This fish is more agile than other fish?
JOHN KUMPH: Yeah, it's incredibly agile. They've put accelerometers on these things and they've measured acceleration rates that are just absurd, like 24 Gs.
http://www.pbs.org/saf/transcripts/transcript1002.htm#3
, wheels weren't really even needed in the New World. It doesn't make much sense to build an entire propeller system for flight or swimming at the macro scale, developmentally speaking, I think it's ideal for swimming bacteria though.
On the other hand, we do see propellers where they are absolutely essential, in bacteria, they need their ultra complex propellers to master the brownian storm (it is far more complex than any propeller man has ever made).
As far as the Dawkins' quote,
a wheel especially a complex one as seen in the bacterial flagellum, is irreducibly complex, a Darwinian mechanism wouldn't likely be able to handle it, blood vessels or no blood vessels:
quote:
The wheel is a manufactured object that can only function when it is complete.
Going back to the Dawkins quote though I don't think that rolling animals such as Nic's examples are true wheels nor do they bring focus on the true nature of the problem. The problem is the wheel-bearing system, but I also read somewhere some speculations of how true wheels might be built, an animal shedding it's skin and anchoring it with an axle and a knob at the end is pretty much a true wheel. I have no idea how you would do this developmentally. And we see none of these at the macroscale.
[ 24. June 2003, 23:11: Message edited by: Nelson_Alonso ]
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