Design inteligente 'guiando' a evolução???

quinta-feira, dezembro 10, 2009

Biological Networks: The Tinkerer as an Engineer

U. Alon

This viewpoint comments on recent advances in understanding the design principles
of biological networks. It highlights the surprising discovery of “good-engineering”
principles in biochemical circuitry that evolved by random tinkering.

François Jacob pictured evolution as a tinkerer, not an engineer (1). Engineers and tinkerers arrive at their solutions by very different routes. Rather than planning structures in advance and drawing up blueprints (as an engineer would), evolution as a tinkerer works with odds and ends, assembling interactions until they are good enough to work. It is therefore wondrous that the solutions found by evolution have much in common with good engineering design (2). This Viewpoint comments on recent advances in understanding biological networks using concepts from engineering.

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