Category: Uncategorized

NOT FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES. We always assume that evolution has developed the most highly adapted design for a particular function -- think Darwin's Finches -- and how adapted they are to their particular foods. However, most of evolution seems to have been a series of workarounds from an outmoded design to a new use, rather than a design from first principles. The evolution of the human foot is a case in point. It derived from a quadrupedal and arboreal ancestor, trying to make it suitable for bipedal locomotion. Or, put differently, turning a square into a triangle. View in LinkedIn

BOLT-ON EVOLUTION. If someone presented me with a design for a human foot that looked like the actual human foot, I probably would have thrown them out of my office. Clunky, messy, bolt-on evolution is why the designs from robotics companies look nothing like the human foot: it was not designed from scratch with a single purpose. All about exaptation: the acquisitions of functions for which they were not originally adapted. View in LinkedIn

MINDLESS EVOLUTION. "Natural selection is the simple result of variation, differential reproduction, and heredity — it is mindless and mechanistic. It has no goals; it's not striving to produce "progress" or a balanced ecosystem." http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0_0/evo_32 View in LinkedIn

"EVOLUTION MYTHS: Evolution produces perfectly adapted creatures." https://lnkd.in/dFj4fee View in LinkedIn

QUASI-ADAPTED. "No population or organism is perfectly adapted." http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0_0/evo_32 View in LinkedIn

"NATURAL SELECTION is not all-powerful; it does not produce perfection." https://lnkd.in/dSu4jkg View in LinkedIn

NOT DESIGNED. "Nature abounds with organisms that humans would never "design" as perfect." https://lnkd.in/dfRbEgj View in LinkedIn

David Attenborough: 90 and 'still fighting the good fight' View in LinkedIn

GIANT GENETIC TOOLBOX. "The concept of the ladder may comfort some, especially since it justifies assigning humans to the pinnacle of perfection. Natural selection does not work that way. Rather, nature uses what is available (i.e., in genomic diversity), keeps what works, and discards the rest; actually, the genetic material is not discarded, but is turned off -- most of the human genome comprises unused sequences that are a legacy of evolution." https://lnkd.in/dfRbEgj View in LinkedIn

DOMESTICATED VIRAL FOSSILS. "In some cases, transposable elements have been “domesticated” by the host to perform a specific function in the cell." https://lnkd.in/eKngvkU View in LinkedIn