JUST PLANE CULTURE By Patrick Kinane
EVOLUTIONARY BENCHMARKING
E 03 2014 30
volution is nature’s experiment. It isn’t a science, as no math is involved except for those trying to figure out why we evolved this way or that. Nature experiments with varieties. If it is benefi-
cial then it remains; if it doesn’t, it is molded into something else. With climate changes, the dinosaurs (as with most species of the time) were no longer a viable structure for life and couldn’t sustain themselves (adapt) until a meteor eventually stuck a fork in their existence 65 million years ago. A new breed of animal, the mammals, thrived because they were more adaptable to the new climate and came to the forefront. Although they existed during the dinosaur era, they did not thrive until the conditions were right. Mother Nature doesn’t make mistakes, so dinosaurs now reinvented themselves into smaller and more maintainable creatures: birds. As the mammal population flourished, the environ- ment changed again and became colder. Mammals changed to have heavier coats of fur and more robust bodies. When the ice age subsided, this adaptation was no longer desirable and the Neanderthal, the wooly mammoth and other spe- cies drifted away. Mother Nature doesn’t make mistakes, but she certainly appears to make a lot of adjustments. This is
the sign of an experimenter. She understands what to keep, what to discard and what to reshape. Thomas Edison was not a scientist but an experimenter. When a reporter asked him about the 10,000 failures he experienced until he invented the light bulb, Edison replied, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” If Edison were a scientist, he might have been able to pare those 10,000 experiments down to a few hundred or less plausible trials. What would be lost then is the breadth of knowledge that comes with conducting those implausible experiments.
A scientist at 3M was working on developing a new super strong adhesive and created one that didn’t stick well. Who would want a glue that didn’t stick? Since that didn’t fit the hypothesis, and with the keen focus of a scientist, he discarded this idea and continued his research until another individual found a use for the adhesive by applying it to small pieces of paper that could be applied to several types of surfaces, could be reused and would not harm the surface it was attached to. The post-it note was a resounding success. Although experimentation has merit, it is not better than science — it’s just different, like a shot gun verses a rifle.
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