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Comment by hxa7241 | Hacker News Reader

Natural evolution is best? One word: wheel . . .

Linux as a whole was not designed -- that is easy to accept, and also that it is a strength.

However, design is not so entirely opposed to evolution as might be inferred. Design seems essentially to have some iterative character too. It always entails a some series of ideas, rejections, and then further adjusted ideas. That is deliberately controlled, but it still has variation and selection -- so the possibility of blending between design and evolution is very reasonable.

And given the wheel example, artificial design has something to offer too.

(I think Torvalds' view is consonant with this. -- I mean, is he not overall offering some combination of evolution and design?)

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Your wheel example is not good.

Before wheels, I'm pretty sure people used tree trunks to drag heavy objects from A to B. And I'm pretty sure the wheel's inventor hasn't envisioned the average consumer car we have today either.

Linus's point is that design happens at a micro-level, but at a macroscopic level the direction of a successful project should be made by trial and error with a feedback cycle.

To put things in perspective ... Linux is not designed for servers, it is not designed for desktops, it is not designed for real-time systems, it is not designed for mobile phones. When people wanted to use Linux for such stuff, they took it and modified it to their will, and the parts that slowed them down were eventually removed / refactored.

That's actually very true if you look at the history of many successful projects. And that's evolution more than design. "Release early and often" is exactly about this.

> Your wheel example is not good.

Well, no it isn't too good. But it does basically fit: It is a small feature of larger systems, as you describe, and it has been done better by artificial design.

Hmmm... idea:

design at the micro-level = hypothesis formulation direction of successful project at macroscopic level = repeated testing and reformulation of hypothesis

in other words, project success is science well applied

> Natural evolution is best? One word: wheel . . . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_spider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoop_snake

Evolution got there repeatedly. Legs just work better cross-country, and there didn't use to be much roads around.

Not challenging your point, just curious...do you know of any (non-human) animals that have harnessed fire? I don't mean in an "environmental" way, like looking for food along the edges of a burn, or having IR-sensitive vision, I mean actually collecting it, containing it, using it as a tool. Or is that a uniquely human trait?

To the best of my knowledge that is a uniquely human trait. And we not only harness it - we are dependent on it. Over time our digestive systems have adapted to require cooked food. (Every known culture cooks food. Theoretically you can live on uncooked food. However the few who try it have to eat constantly and tend to be skinny...)

What's wrong with being skinny ? I can see the point of not having to eat constantly, but if skinny is one end of the spectrum and overweight is the other I'd rather be skinny.

Nothing is wrong with being skinny. However if you live in a culture with virtually unlimited food available, are eating constantly, and can't add weight, then that suggests you aren't meeting your nutritional requirements.

The reason, of course, is that our guts are adapted to pre-processed food, and so are shorter. Therefore unless you get some cooked nutrition, it is very hard to get enough food. It is possible, some people do it, but it is hard.

Depends... "Eskimo" means "eaters of raw meat."

As a skinny fellow, I tend to agree -- or, rather, my metabolism agrees for me. Counter-point, though: consider the "obesity paradox". Statistically, obesity correlates massively more positively with survival in the face of catastrophic illness (cancer, &c) than for folks with a normal-ish BMI, let alone the scrawny ones. It's probably a less "selective" (in the evolutionary sense) trait than it might be, in that cancer tends to be an ailment associated with at least somewhat advanced age, a time by which most people who are going to will likely have bred.

Natural wheels exist, but I wouldn't call them best.

Of course natural is best. That's why peregrine falcons are faster than F-16 Falcons.

Peregrine falcons are probably better at catching food.

However F-16 Falcons do not reproduce.

Sure they do -- take several government contractors and just add cash.

No F-16 needed to start the process. Thus no reproduction.

Postscriptum:

Saying "wheel!" is crude and invites a simple counter. But the point is there is a simple, important thing where artifice has a substantial lead.

And without well-chosen application of design, the large-scale evolution might be practically excluded from certain areas.

(. . . that was really a side issue. It was the procedural similarity of design and evolution -- they are not so much opposed, as differently balanced.)

Wheels are quite unpractical. Their only advantage is that they require relatively little energy over long distances. However, why not reduce the need for long distances or not create it in the first place?

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