[microformats-discuss] Evolution vs Intelligent Design

[Danny Ayers]

On 10/6/05, Luke Arno <luke.arno at gmail.com> wrote:

> I wasn't speaking of evolution within the microformats community. I was
> referring to evolution of semantics in markup across the Web.

Hmm, I'm still not convinced.

> It is not just a metaphor. Language is literal evolution. Check out chapter
> 10 of "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins.

Dawkins makes a good case around memes competing for human attention
in the cultural environment. I'm not so sure about "language is
literal evolution", or the equivalence of descriptive markup
(delimited for the benefit of computers) to human languages.

> I don't even like the phrase "microformats development" for what is
> happening here. That is why I object to requiring an overarching problem
> statement for microformats. It is not a development effort at its core.
>
> Individual microformats have problem statements but observe step 2
> in the microformats process.
>
> http://microformats.org/wiki/process

You mean "Document Current Behavior"? I just visited the review
research cited as an example. I happen to have produced a review
vocabulary myself, the listing on that page is:

----
 REV
    * RDF Review Vocabulary: http://www.purl.org/stuff/rev
          o Supposedly deployed in FilmTrust
(http://trust.mindswap.org/FilmTrust/). Unable to verify by going to
site.
----

The title is wrong, the vocabulary *is* used in FilmTrust as 5 seconds
with Google would have verified. Which leaves the link. That's this
bit of current behaviour documented?

> I do agree with you that a little intelligence and fore site is in
> order as well.
> Dawkins writes at the end of the chapter sited above:
>
> "We alone on earth can rebel against the tyranny of our selfish replicators."

Yeah, but for a scientist he doesn't half talk about religion a lot.

Cheers,
Danny.

--

http://dannyayers.com