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To: Windflier
cyborgs take over and dispense with the biological life

That has also been a sci-fi theme for years (Battlestar Galactica, SkyNet).

The first scientist I saw to suggest it was Richard Dawkins in his book "The Blind Watchmaker" (1986, revised 1996). He brought it up in the context of, why do we see no intermediate life form that used something simpler than DNA and RNA? Those are very complex molecules, and they couldn't have sprung up from nothing.

So he suggested, maybe whatever came before just got out-competed for survival by the far more advanced DNA life forms, and he drew the analogy to cyborgs taking over from their human predecessors and wiping out all traces of the humans.

93 posted on 09/24/2016 2:24:22 PM PDT by MUDDOG
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To: MUDDOG

Shoot, the ‘cyborgs take over and dispense with humans’ theme is much older than the 80s.

I well remember a series of comics from the sixties where robots had reached such a point of sophistication that they were in a war against their human creators.

I believe Asimov’s “I Robot” was also published in that decade. I’m sure other authors penned even earlier works on the topic.

I expect to be around until about 2040, so I’m sure I’ll witness the beginning stages of android/cyborg development.


94 posted on 09/24/2016 2:37:12 PM PDT by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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