Chris Adami
Chris Adami
Christoph Carl Herbert "Chris" Adamiis a professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, as well as professor of Physics and Astronomy, at Michigan State University. Adami was born in Brussels, Belgium, and graduated from the European School of Brussels I. He obtained a Diplom in Physics from the University of Bonn and an MA and a Ph.D. in Theoretical Nuclear Physics from Stony Brook University in 1991. He is best known for his work on Avida, an artificial life simulator used...
NationalityBelgian
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth30 August 1962
CountryBelgium
Life can be less mysterious than we make it out to be when we try to think about how it would be on other planets. And if we remove the mystery of life, then I think it is a little bit easier for us to think about how we live, and how perhaps we're not as special as we always think we are.
In the animal world, there are all kinds of behaviors that are binary: for example, to flee or to fight. In any evolutionary environment, knowing your opponent's decision would not be advantageous for long because your opponent would evolve the same recognition mechanism to also know you.
We found evolution will punish you if you're selfish and mean. For a short time and against a specific set of opponents, some selfish organisms may come out ahead. But selfishness isn't evolutionarily sustainable.
We can make life in the computer. Granted, it's limited, but we have learned what it takes in order to actually construct it.