I have just been watching an old horizon episode entitled the ‘blind watchmaker‘ featuring Richard Dawkins on youtube. In this feature he is discussing evolution and makes some very interesting observations on how evolution can create very complicated organs and organisms via natural selection. The prime example given is that of an eye. The creationists ask ‘what use is 5% of an eye?’ To which the obvious answer is, somewhat more use than no eye at all. Of course since nature, and indeed ourselves, have not ‘finished’ evolving you would not expect every creature to have a fully developed eye. You would expect, rather, that some are still evolving a ‘better’ way of seeing. In fact after talking through the process by which a human eye could hypothetically have come about Dawkins then presents examples in nature of organisms which have something very, very similar to each indivdual step along the path, as well as some that are,arguably, more advanced. If you don’t really ‘get’ how natural selection can cause chance mutations to lead to improvements down the generations this makes for essential viewing.
The most interesting part of the program for me however was the second half which was mostly about how natural selection has very useful applications in technology and design. I feel it is worth noting here that whether or not you believe in biological natural selection, or as I like to say, the facts, it is still a valid avenue of scientific research simply for the new outlook it can bring to bear on other topics. An example cited here is that of fan blades maximising wind power. When all of the variables and unknowns of this problem are taken into account the classical mathematical and engineering models can only go so far. By using a series of trial and error followed by ‘breeding’ the best performing systems from each generation a very efficient system can be hit upon in a surprisingly short timescale.
The program is now quite dated and no doubt all of the things Dawkins is/was commenting on are rather passe, yet still these examples make for fascinating viewing. I have read a little about this method of design before and was intrigued then. I wonder how many companies are using this methodology. Even the most perfunctory search on Google has revealed some very interesting articles on the subject, for examlpe this one on circuit design.
Amazing, now how can I apply these design ideas to make my bikes faster?
