Are biological mechanisms optimized, or do they function poorly, evidence of their “poor design”? William Bialek, professor of physics at Princeton, has discovered that assuming organisms use optimized mechanisms for accomplishing their most crucial tasks is quantitatively testable. And at least in multiple tested cases, the assumption of optimality turns out to be correct. The Aesthetic of Optimization But assuming optimality worries many scientists. Bialek notes, “optimization comes along with an aesthetic that you might or might not find appealing.” (Bialek 2024) He writes, “For some, optimization is obvious because evolution has had billions of years to get things right. For others, optimization is nonsense because evolution is not about being best, but about being better than the competition.” It seems what Read More ›
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