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the first obvious serious objection is that technological “evolution” is in no logical way a continuation of biological evolution — the word “evolution” here being applied with completely different meanings. And besides, there is no scientifically sensible way in which biological evolution has been accelerating over the several billion years of its operation on our planet. So much for scientific accuracy and logical consistency.

here is a bit that will give you an idea of why some people think of Singularitarianism as a secular religion: “The Singularity will allow us to transcend [the] limitations of our biological bodies and brains. We will gain power over our fates. Our mortality will be in our own hands. We will be able to live as long as we want.”

Fig. 2 of that essay shows a progression through (again, entirely arbitrary) six “epochs,” with the next one (#5) occurring when there will be a merger between technological and human intelligence (somehow, a good thing), and the last one (#6) labeled as nothing less than “the universe wakes up” — a nonsensical outcome further described as “patterns of matter and energy in the universe becom[ing] saturated with intelligence processes and knowledge.” This isn’t just science fiction, it is bad science fiction.

“a serious assessment of the history of technology reveals that technological change is exponential. Exponential growth is a feature of any evolutionary process.” First, it is highly questionable that one can even measure “technological change” on a coherent uniform scale. Yes, we can plot the rate of, say, increase in microprocessor speed, but that is but one aspect of “technological change.” As for the idea that any evolutionary process features exponential growth, I don’t know where Kurzweil got it, but it is simply wrong, for one thing because biological evolution does not have any such feature — as any student of Biology 101 ought to know.

Kurzweil’s ignorance of evolution is manifested again a bit later, when he claims — without argument, as usual — that “Evolution is a process of creating patterns of increasing order. ... It’s the evolution of patterns that constitutes the ultimate story of the world. ... Each stage or epoch uses the information-processing methods of the previous epoch to create the next.” I swear, I was fully expecting a scholarly reference to Deepak Chopra at the end of that sentence. Again, “evolution” is a highly heterogeneous term that picks completely different concepts, such as cosmic “evolution” (actually just change over time), biological evolution (which does have to do with the creation of order, but not in Kurzweil’s blatantly teleological sense), and technological “evolution” (which is certainly yet another type of beast altogether, since it requires intelligent design). And what on earth does it mean that each epoch uses the “methods” of the previous one to “create” the next one?

As we have seen, the whole idea is that human beings will merge with machines during the ongoing process of ever accelerating evolution, an event that will eventually lead to the universe awakening to itself, or something like that. Now here is the crucial question: how come this has not happened already?

To appreciate the power of this argument you may want to refresh your memory about the Fermi Paradox, a serious (though in that case, not a knockdown) argument against the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent life. The story goes that physicist Enrico Fermi (the inventor of the first nuclear reactor) was having lunch with some colleagues, back in 1950. His companions were waxing poetic about the possibility, indeed the high likelihood, that the galaxy is teeming with intelligent life forms. To which Fermi asked something along the lines of: “Well, where are they, then?”

The idea is that even under very pessimistic (i.e., very un-Kurzweil like) expectations about how quickly an intelligent civilization would spread across the galaxy (without even violating the speed of light limit!), and given the mind boggling length of time the galaxy has already existed, it becomes difficult (though, again, not impossible) to explain why we haven’t seen the darn aliens yet.

Now, translate that to Kurzweil’s much more optimistic predictions about the Singularity (which allegedly will occur around 2045, conveniently just a bit after Kurzweil’s expected demise, given that he is 63 at the time of this writing). Considering that there is no particular reason to think that planet earth, or the human species, has to be the one destined to trigger the big event, why is it that the universe hasn’t already “awakened” as a result of a Singularity occurring somewhere else at some other time?

In contrast, each of the new genes increases risk by no more than 10 to 15 percent; for that reason, they will not be used to decide if a person is likely to develop Alzheimer’s. APOE, which is involved in metabolizing cholesterol, “is in a class of its own,” said Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School and an author of one of the papers.

But researchers say that even a slight increase in risk helps them in understanding the disease and developing new therapies. And like APOE, some of the newly discovered genes appear to be involved with cholesterol.

The other paper is by researchers in Britain, France and other European countries with contributions from the United States. They confirmed the genes found by the American researchers and added one more gene.

The American study got started about three years ago when Gerard D. Schellenberg, a pathology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, went to the National Institutes of Health with a complaint and a proposal. Individual research groups had been doing their own genome studies but not having much success, because no one center had enough subjects. In an interview, Dr. Schellenberg said that he had told Dr. Richard J. Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging, the small genomic studies had to stop, and that Dr. Hodes had agreed. These days, Dr. Hodes said, “the old model in which researchers jealously guarded their data is no longer applicable.”

So Dr. Schellenberg set out to gather all the data he could on Alzheimer’s patients and on healthy people of the same ages. The idea was to compare one million positions on each person’s genome to determine whether some genes were more common in those who had Alzheimer’s. “I spent a lot of time being nice to people on the phone,” Dr. Schellenberg said. He got what he wanted: nearly every Alzheimer’s center and Alzheimer’s geneticist in the country cooperated. Dr. Schellenberg and his colleagues used the mass of genetic data to do an analysis and find the genes and then, using two different populations, to confirm that the same genes were conferring the risk. That helped assure the investigators that they were not looking at a chance association. It was a huge effort, Dr. Mayeux said. Many medical centers had Alzheimer’s patients’ tissue sitting in freezers. They had to extract the DNA and do genome scans.

“One of my jobs was to make sure the Alzheimer’s cases really were cases — that they had used some reasonable criteria” for diagnosis, Dr. Mayeux said. “And I had to be sure that people who were unaffected really were unaffected.”

Meanwhile, the European group, led by Dr. Julie Williams of the School of Medicine at Cardiff University, was engaged in a similar effort. Dr. Schellenberg said the two groups compared their results and were reassured that they were largely finding the same genes. “If there were mistakes, we wouldn’t see the same things,” he added. Now the European and American groups are pooling their data to do an enormous study, looking for genes in the combined samples. “We are upping the sample size,” Dr. Schellenberg said. “We are pretty sure more stuff will pop out.”

One organization using this approach is the Science and Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Sciences. The Exchange puts writers, producers, and directors in touch with scientists and engineers who can answer specific questions or just brainstorm ideas. For example, writers for the TV show Fringe changed their original plot point of mind control through hypnosis to magnetic manipulation of brain waves after speaking with a neuroscientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California.

Hollywood, Health and Society (HHS), a program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, takes a similar approach by providing free resources to the entertainment industry. HHS connects writers and producers — from prime time dramas like Law and Order and House to daytime soap operas – with experts who can provide accurate health information for their scripts.

HHS Director Sandra Buffington admits that environmental issues, especially climate change, pose particular challenges for communicators because at first glance, they are not as immediately relevant as personal health issues. However, she believes that by focusing on real, human stories — climate refugees displaced by rising water levels, farmers unable to grow food because of drought, children sick because of outbreaks of malaria — the issues of the planet will crystallize into something tangible. All scientists need to do is provide the information, and the professional creative storytellers will do the rest, she says.

Olson also takes a cue from television. He points to the rise of reality TV shows as a clear indication of where the general public interest lies. If environmentalists want to capture that interest, Olson thinks they need to start experimenting with these innovative types of unscripted forms. “That’s where the cutting edge exists,” he said.