On Fri, May 09, 2014 at 02:47:23PM +0000, Bruce Johnson wrote:
> "Zeno's Creationism"

Heh, nice phrase.  Of course, real generations of descendants are
discrete - though the sources of genetic variation are rather less
clearly delineated than that.

One thing I do wonder about is how edible alien life forms in
Traveller would be.  With all the jokes about K'kree burgers, the
serious question remains of just how different the biospheres of
different planets in Traveller are at the biochemical level.

Were there distributions of life between the stars, say a billion or
two years ago?  Much earlier than the comparatively recent Ancients?
If so, it's quite plausible that most of the fundamental biochemistry
on most life-bearing terrestrial planets is similar to that of Earth.

Also there's plenty of reason that in Traveller's timeline, some sort
of Intelligent Design is going to be a major consideration in any
theory of origin of at least some species.  We know of at least two
that were definitely (at least partly) designed by an intelligent
being.

Also what are the chances that a transition to a completely different
universe so variant from our own that lightspeed doesn't even apply,
happens to be survivable by fragile chemical meatbags in their natural
state?  That really smacks of intelligent design...

- Tim