Desighn

Okay, so the title is an honest to goodness typo I kept. Why? Becuase it illustrates, to a modest extent, the kind of mistakes that get made, in some instances genetically, that some are in some ways and under some circumstances appropriate or helpful. Or amusing.

Evolutionary theory makes sense to me. It makes sense intellectually and what's more, it feels right. Everything I've seen or known about living things can be explained by evolutionary theory, the way that everything I've experienced of landforms can be explained by geology.

I was walking with a friend the other day when I examined a deciduous tree that had not shed it's leaves thought they were brown and dry. I wanted to know whether the non-shedding of leaves would interfere with the budding of new growth - whether the tree was suffering some kind of unhelpful ailment or deformity. I found that the buds of new leaves were emerging unimpeded just adjacent to the dead leaves.

My friend commented that it was a good design, and I agreed, not realising that he was ironically alluding to the Intelligent Design issue. I imagined that he was imagining applying the same principle to an artificial product or project. I can see how instead of making a sweeping effort to remove all redundant items before inserting new ones, it could be easier and even advantageous to remove redundancies automatically as part of the piecemeal insertion of the new objects.

It occurred to me that the old leaves remaining on the branches might offer some form of protection to the new shoots. Or perhaps there was some advantage to them not covering the ground at the foot of the tree during winter proper. Or maybe the leaves would fall in very early spring when the new leaves spouted, and would provide a more effective weed-mat through the growing season than leaves shed earlier?

I see advantage in loking at the organic construction solutions brought about by adaptations of millennia and applying them to design problems we are faced with. In doing so, I think of the solutions as designs not of an intelligent and conscious nature, but the result of evolution. Fortunate accident compounded by fortunate accident to the power of the beginning of the current thread of life 'til now. If that makes any sense.

I reserve the right to use the term 'design' in the way outlined above to describe natural forms, though I acknowledge no designer. I suppose I should eschew confusion by finding an alternative word, but as yet I'm still boggling at the fact that it's an issue at all.

(I wrote 'assue' instead of 'issue' in that last sentence. Perhaps I should keep that one too?? ;-))