Wolpert isn’t necessarily screwed – the critical text in the bet is “in at least one case”

So my reading of the bet here is that Wolpert wins as long as he can find a single example where outcome can be determined by examination of the genome. So as long as we’ve found a species of plant or animal whose development is relatively unaffected by its environment, then he’s won the bet.

The bet will not be won with an alligator egg, nor a human. If genetic determination wins out, it will probably be in a relatively simple organism.

Wow. Nice.

I wonder how many of his vitriolic critics have read A New Science Of Life… sure, it may well be a steaming pile of crap, but at least Sheldrake’s prepared to look outside the square and try to answer questions that have languished in the too hard basket. And his hypothesis does seem fairly promising if you actually try it on.

And although some experiments designed to test it fail to confirm it, aren’t there others with some spooky results in favour of it? And the weird stuff about how long new molecules take to form, did he just make that up?

no mention of the prize for the Hawking/Thorne wager?!!? for shame, that’s the best part!

Hawking & Thorne apparently went on to jointly lose another wager against John Preskill, the prize in this case being a baseball encyclopaedia.

That said Wolpert might be wrong simply because he’s overly optimistic with his date of 2029.

But if it’s going to happen, it’ll be that housefly that keeps getting its eyes and legs switched in the lab!

per Hawking’s mention of it in aBHoT, Thorne won a 1-year subscription to the ‘gentlemans’ magazine of his choosing. yesss.

Are we talking about detecting the color of a kitten’s eyes and fur or are we talking about things like the cat’s personality, lifespan, etc.?

The bet should really have been on whether or not there will be any evidence of ‘Morphogenetic fields’ in 20 years.

More on Sheldrake:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/06/the_sheldrake_phenomenon.php

Pity I doubt I’ll be alive in 2029 to see the outcome.

Many, many big assumptions in this wager. The first, and most obvious, that I can think of, is whether you count the epigenetic code of the animal as part of the genetic code; whether the genes are active or inactive, which can be inherited from parents and affected by environment. Wikipedia’s page is pretty solid, skip down to the “functions and consequences” section. Right there, Wolpert is going to run into trouble.

That, and “all the details” is a remarkably general comment. I hope that between themselves they’ve decided on the level of accuracy that this requires. I’m thinking here mostly of the major identifiers of fingerprints or retinal scans, which are largely developmentally-determined.

There is a surprising amount of flexibility based on conditions in the womb, egg, or seed.

Encoding Life’s Complexity

The question is, will we be able to simulate the recursively unfolding environment by 2029 with computing power available then. If you believe the double-exponential arguments proffered by Kurzweil, et al, then Wolpert may win.

Unless the judge of this bet is especially generous with that “all the details” qualifier, Wolpert has already lost.

Michael Gottlieb
Physics Department
California Institute of Technology

For others like me, he is a brave and compassionate scientist, who is able to adroitly communicate, and demonstrate, how there is much more going on here than what meets the purely materialist eye.

I see Sheldrake, Radin, Abraham and others as the Galileos of our time.

I’m honoured to be helping organize a lecture by Dr. Sheldrake and his wife Jill Purce here in Vancouver in one week: Friday July 17th. Please join us if you’ll be in the Vancouver area. All welcome.

Full details:

http://sheldrakepurcevancouver.org

peace.
Andy