Its only the advances brought bu Moore's Law that make this kind
of thing possible. The computational horsepower it takes to run these
algorithms is immense yet a typical work station can now do this
stuff. This is the sort of thing that lends evidence to the
'Accelerating Change' idea. Advancing computer power boosts our
ability to run ever more sophisticated algorithms and models which in
turn allows us to develop and test new theories faster or create
entirely new fields of science like comparative genetic analysis, etc.
Now imagine when an average work station or even a typical PC can do
everything that IBM's 1 petaflop super-computer can do, and more.
(more because there will be more software to utilize all that power by
then)
