[UA] Re: The Metal Eaters (was Steampunk)

[Nick Wedig]

>figure two-hundred thousand years and ten years per generation (not entirely
>accurate, other primates have shorter ones, but humans have a longer one,
>I'm assuming it averages out to that gives you evolution to human
>intelligence in 20,000 generations.  Three generations per day would do that
>in 6,666 days and sixteen hours.  That's still eighteen years.  By geometric
>progression, they'd have consumed every piece of metal on earth long before
>that and started eating each other.  

I may place most self replicating clockworks lower on the evolutionary scale (say, more like lizards) but that's a minor quibble.

Really, we have little data about how likely intelligence is to occur.  Would any animal population develop an intelligent race given enough time?  That's one assumption of your argument, but we have no way of knowing this.  

Mr. Teapot
wonders how we'd build glass houses without nails or metal frames

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