Jean-Claude André

Bio: Jean-Claude André is an academic researcher. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 47 citations.

Complex systems

Abstract: Every organisation from the scale of whole countries down to small companies has a list of system developments which have ended in various forms of disaster. The nature of the failures varies but typical examples are: cost overruns; timescale overruns and sometimes, loss of life. The post-mortems to these systems reveal a wide range of reasons all the way from hardware failures, through software errors right to major system level mistakes. More importantly a large number of these systems share one attribute: complexity. This paper presents a fresh look at the nature of complexity in the building of computer based systems.

Remaking Eden: Cloning and beyond in a Brave New World

Abstract: Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World Silver, Lee M. New York: Avon Books 1997 In Remaking Eden: Cloning and Beyond in a Brave New World, Lee Silver tackles genetic engineering with the creative flair that only a true scientific empiricist can muster. This is the only book of those reviewed that could be considered futuristic and unabashedly scientific in every respect. This represents a remarkable achievement in describing what is in store for genetic engineering. Of the books reviewed, only Remaking Eden takes a futuristic look of what is available now and in the future and paints some interesting scenarios. Only Remaking Eden underlines the potential importance of purposefully-directed evolution, under the conscious control of the human intellect, versus the algorithmic control of the selfish genes that have heretofore had control of human destiny. Egalitarians would like us to turn our backs on our human nature and pretend we are somehow beyond the rules of nature and that only an egalitarian universalism will solve the world's problems. Silver shows us that with the advent of eugenically-motivated genetic engineering, the future would be nothing like the Marxist perspective of human conflict, but could transcend our present concept of human limits. Silver opens with a discussion of the future 'GenRich' class of people - those wealthy enough to provide their offspring the advantages of having designer genes inserted into their germ cells that will be passed on again to their children. Will they technically be considered a new species? How far can the genetic alterations go before breeding between the GenRich class and Naturals will no longer be possible? Is it then morally acceptable for the Naturals to kill the GenRich as a dangerous intellectual and manipulating predator class, or for the GenRich to thin the herds of the Naturals the way we thin deer herds when they do not have enough to eat? After all, they are separate species, with talents, heritable diseases, and intellects so different from each other that empathy and compassion for the new underclass will wane to the point of being replaced by contempt, like rats in the alley. The Left, of course, will try to stop this from happening by shackling human reproductive freedom by passing laws against such practices. But of course this will only accelerate the speciation process by restricting those with moderate-to-low incomes from taking advantage of genetic engineering in favor of the upper-class who will vacation and conceive their children in countries who will remain free to advance human evolution, while also being able to provide their own citizens with enhanced genes. These countries (probably Asia) will advance in their average genetic capital traits like intelligence and technical advancement while those controlled by the religious right and the old Bolshevik Left will unite to deter this technology altogether, all in the name of preventing an ideology they cannot accept, evolutionary empiricism. Science will be subordinated for postmodernist propaganda about how the world should be molded into the classless state, one that will fail because it ignores the realities of human nature. Silver continues: But, as one might imagine, GenRich parents put intense pressure on their children not to dilute their expensive genetic endowment in this way [intermarriage between GenRich and Naturals]. And as time passes, the mixing of the classes will become less and less frequent for reasons of both environment and genetics. The environmental reason is clear enough: GenRich and Natural children grow up and live in segregated social worlds where there is little chance for contact between them. That parental pressure already exists, of course, in Orthodox Jewish genetic separatism and to maintain Jewish blood purity. There is great concern among Jews about intermarriage, precisely because they are the forerunners of the GenRich class; the rest of whites and Asians are the Naturals. …