http://www.salon.com/2012/04/09/darwins_devices_here_come_the_robot_fish/
In an article for salon.com, Laura Miller describes the work of scientist John Long, which has helped scientists and researchers better understand the way that evolution works. Miller states that Long is a researcher who has been fascinated by fish for a great deal of time, and he uses robotics to better understand the reasons that fish and other sea creatures have evolved the way they have. Long creates robots that resemble certain creatures and makes hypotheses about the way that he believes that evolution should make them act. He then takes the actual findings and interprets them to find actual reasons for evolution, which often defy intuition.
Miller's overall claim in the article is that robots can be used in unexpected ways to advance the work of science. Miller describes in depth two unexpected ways that Long's research has been used to explain evolution that would have previously been contradictory. Miller's grounds for this come in the form of fact claims that appeal to logos when she cites these two scientific studies. One describes how Long and his team discovered a factor in tadpoles called "wobble" that led to the development of backbones in early vertebrates. Another describes that discovery that an ancient creature's use of four flippers was actually inefficient, which was contrary to popular belief. The article seems to also make an overarching policy claim that unpopular scientific research (both involving robots and otherwise) should be funded in order to increase discoveries similar to those made by Long. The grounds for this claim are the unexpected discoveries created by Long's research.
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