Janeway vs. Ransom?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Do you mean the Cardassian doctor? Because... there are no Kardashians in Star Trek.

What's to say that the Cardassians aren't simply descendants of Kim's bum implants which have evolved into sentience, hmmm?

More likely than the dinosaur people.

How so? There has more time passed between T-Rex and Stegosaurus existing, than there has been between T-Rex and Humans. Non-Avian Dinosaurs ruled the world for 175 billion years. That is a heck of a lot of time to develop the mental capacity needed for space flight, especially given the diversification we can observe in the fossil records. Granted, an advanced civilization would likely leave more traces in the record, but then again, it took humans roughly 315,000 years to get into space after the first humans appearing in the fossil record. If you want to be more strict, human technological development really only took off about 15,000 years ago.

I mean, it's highly unlikely as far as we know, but there's plenty of room for a lost civilization. Heck, we needed about 3,000 to 3,400 years to find a city that has left lots of traces in history and was almost constantly settled ever since it left it's mark in Homer's Troi. Maybe we really just don't see the obvious or maybe they just had a lower impact on their environment than we do, for some reason.

Well obviously I'm mistakenly referring to a computer that could map out said course of evolution for dinosaurs, as was the topic of Chuck's video.

[Riedquat]

Well obviously I'm mistakenly referring to a computer that could map out said course of evolution for dinosaurs, as was the topic of Chuck's video.

That brings us back to an oft-repeated Trek problem, that evolution is somehow predictable. That part's facepalming, but I can buy the idea that they'd be able to tell some random species had originated on Earth, even that long ago.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Well obviously I'm mistakenly referring to a computer that could map out said course of evolution for dinosaurs, as was the topic of Chuck's video.

That brings us back to an oft-repeated Trek problem, that evolution is somehow predictable. That part's facepalming, but I can buy the idea that they'd be able to tell some random species had originated on Earth, even that long ago.

Well maybe. I think the problem was the computer just kinda guessing, though if it examined its DNA, I'm not sure why it'd be so far-fetched.

[Riedquat]

It's far-fetched because there's no course for evolution. You can't predict what mutations you'll get and you can't predict how the environment will change. The possibilities are so wide that even a "most likely" is meaningless.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

You can't predict what mutations you'll get and you can't predict how the environment will change.

Maybe you can't.

[CMDR_Bob]

You can't predict what mutations you'll get and you can't predict how the environment will change.

Maybe you can't.

Neither climate or evolution are perfected sciences. Anyone not high on their own hubris in those respective fields will tell you as much. Geological data we currently possess (which is basically a sliver compared to the planet's age) doesn't even fully express how tectonic shifting has altered the landmasses over the centuries. We can only hypothesize, at best, what the Earth looked like 65 million years ago, or even 20,000 years ago.

As for evolution, anthropologists theorize that the spinosaurus was, by design, the perfect hunter of its time. As the planet changed from whatever meteorlogical/galactic happening, its food supply diminished and the species eventually went extinct. You would think that evolution would explain the opposite-that the species would adapt due to its "perfect" nature- but, nope, it died out completely.

Believe me, science as a whole is still fairly uncertain about a lot of things. When you politicize science to force your own agenda, that's when you get an Al Gore or those siblings in that TNG episode about how warp tech is bad for us all. Saying it can predict what kind of mutations a species will develop is a bit silly.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

You can't predict what mutations you'll get and you can't predict how the environment will change.

Maybe you can't.

Neither climate or evolution are perfected sciences. Anyone not high on their own hubris in those respective fields will tell you as much. Geological data we currently possess (which is basically a sliver compared to the planet's age) doesn't even fully express how tectonic shifting has altered the landmasses over the centuries. We can only hypothesize, at best, what the Earth looked like 65 million years ago, or even 20,000 years ago.

As for evolution, anthropologists theorize that the spinosaurus was, by design, the perfect hunter of its time. As the planet changed from whatever meteorlogical/galactic happening, its food supply diminished and the species eventually went extinct. You would think that evolution would explain the opposite-that the species would adapt due to its "perfect" nature- but, nope, it died out completely.

Believe me, science as a whole is still fairly uncertain about a lot of things. When you politicize science to force your own agenda, that's when you get an Al Gore or those siblings in that TNG episode about how warp tech is bad for us all. Saying it can predict what kind of mutations a species will develop is a bit silly.

I'm not clear though on why it's impractical for sci-fi to have computers that are able to look at the DNA of a specimen and hypothesize a reverse-course of evolution based on finding a match for DNA that the computer has.

I mean I haven't seen the episode or its corresponding review in a little while. And this query of mine didn't occur to me, so I'm not sure if I'm missing something.

I did however think it was funny when Chuck talked about the micro-virus traveling between hosts in the micro/macro virus episode.

[Robovski]

It is science fiction, we are accepting warp drive, sentient AI, antimatter power (for examples). I can understand if a computer model of evolution may be flawed or inaccurate - but getting a result based on the assumptions of the model is expected. How accurate or useful that model is YMMV.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

It is science fiction, we are accepting warp drive, sentient AI, antimatter power (for examples). I can understand if a computer model of evolution may be flawed or inaccurate - but getting a result based on the assumptions of the model is expected. How accurate or useful that model is YMMV.

Wait wut you mean assumptions of the model?

edit: Oh I think I see.

[CMDR_Bob]

My issue is that, somehow, in the 24th Century and without a fossil record or any physical evidence to base its hypothesis on, the computer managed the miracle of guessing correctly simply through crew input. I can accept warp drive, sentient AI, and antimatter power because we're putting in time and effort on that right now. A computer that can take verbal inputs based on flawed information and come up with the answer 100%? Siri can't even do that, man!