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NOT CHILDREN OF THEIR PARENTS. "Ludwig argues that computer viruses, unlike such other forms of artificial life as cellular automata, mobots, or genetic programming, are the only form of artificial life not biased by the hope of their creators." (Author of The Giant Black Book of Computer Viruses). https://lnkd.in/edrARjk View in LinkedIn

THE DIGITAL AGE OF BIOLOGY. "This is now the era of digital biology, in which the proteins and other interacting molecules in a cell can be viewed as its hardware and the information encoded in its DNA as its software." (Craig Venter). https://lnkd.in/eyZU783 View in LinkedIn

DARWINIAN EVOLUTION. "Mark Ludwig claims computer viruses are the only artificial life forms in the wild of which one can claim that their environments (operating systems) are not specially constructed to let them work. He finds that computer viruses can exhibit Darwinian evolution." https://lnkd.in/dbB7hd4 View in LinkedIn

DNA AS SOFTWARE. "DNA is the software of the cell, and when we change the software we change the species." (J Craig Venter). https://lnkd.in/eJFrT_P View in LinkedIn

SYNTHETIC LIFE. "Computer viruses are autonomous self-reproducing agents. They infect other computers just like viruses and parasites in the biological world do. Computer viruses are a form of artificial life." https://lnkd.in/dbB7hd4 View in LinkedIn

CONVERGENT. "Simon Conway Morris argues that convergence is the stronger force – the principles of engineering dictate that the same, or similar, solutions will emerge repeatedly." https://lnkd.in/dtE8XQK View in LinkedIn

CONTINGENT. "Steven Jay Gould advocated the contingency of evolution: wind back the clock, and life will evolve again along radically different lines." https://lnkd.in/dtE8XQK View in LinkedIn

FREAK ACCIDENT. "Forty years ago, Jacques Monod published his seminal work, Chance and Necessity (Monod, 1971). Monod's bleak perspective, that the origin of life was a freak accident, and that we are almost certainly alone in an empty universe, was opposed by Christian de Duve, who has argued that life is a "cosmic imperative", and as such will arise throughout the universe." https://lnkd.in/dtE8XQK View in LinkedIn

LAUGHINGLY IMPROBABLE. "The combinatorial stringing together of all of the steps between LECA and Macropus rufus (the red kangaroo), Trichomonas vaginalis, or Mozart is, indeed, laughably improbable. Surely, if life’s tape was rewound, none of these would recur." (LECA = Last eukaryotic common ancestor). https://lnkd.in/d6GwkCt View in LinkedIn

THE GREAT PROFESSOR FRED HOYLE. “A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe.” https://lnkd.in/d5RUEK2 View in LinkedIn