Nature has a massive incentive to make good use of energy from light through photosynthesis. Billions of plants compete, and whoever can get most out of the sun will win out.
Yet manmade solar cells are more efficient by nearly all measures.
Yet manmade solar cells are more efficient by nearly all measures.
Also if someone loses weight, most of the carbon that made up their fat leaves the body as breath.
Just because plants compete on some limited level doesn’t mean that a particular plant organism “winning” means becoming the most efficient converter of sunlight.
Is everyone’s memory like those people who can remember every detail? Why not? If you’re immediately planning to make up a just-so explanation on the spot that has the requisite but unproven claim about increasing the genetic fitness function, that is the problem with evolutionary explanations. It’s not science if you just make stuff up and give it the same amount of credibility as something that has been tested and proven. You can take any trait and spin stories about why it is the way it is, and then expect somehow that some metric has to be maximized because of your unproven theory.
Only because we cheated, though: Houses can't sponantously grow more cells in place when more energy is needed.
1) Trees are natural and trees create leaves with a solar efficiency of x
2) Humans are natural and we create solar panels with efficiency x + y
A gene's extended phenotype includes effects external to particular organisms, like nests, deforestation, changes to the chemical makeup of the atmosphere, etc.
Nature is full of examples that are 'good enough' while balancing other competing constraints. Evolution doesn't create organisms optimized for efficiency - it creates organisms optimized for reproduction. The two are not always the same.