And everything we know about computers can be explained without reference to programmers.
Berra’s blunder, cubed, is the new Big Idea. And yes, they mean it.
From a Duke University media release:
The evolution of Earth’s species occurred on a timescale far too large for humans to witness,” said Bejan. “But the evolution of our use of technology and airplanes to transport people and goods has taken place in little more than a single lifetime, making it visible to those who look. Evolution is a universal phenomenon encompassing technology, river basins and animal design alike, and it is rooted in physics as the constructal law.
The supposed law (and the blunder) are unpacked at Evolution News & Views, in “Good Grief. No, Airplanes Don’t “Evolve” by Natural Law.”
First of all, what’s the constructal law? Lewis writes, “In 1996, Bejan developed a rule, known as the constructal law, which states that ‘for any finite flow system to persist, that is, be alive, it must evolve in such a way that it provides easier and easier access to its currents.'” This is absurd; many things persist but are not alive — for example, ocean currents or tides. And in Darwinian theory, nothing “must evolve” by any rule or law: many organisms simply go extinct or never change (e.g., living fossils). The requirements of powered flight are incapable, in themselves, of forcing mindless laws to conjure up a wing or avian lung. The “constructal law” is, therefore, nothing more than a mental imposition on nature that allows Bejan to salvage mindless Darwinism by making it appear law-driven.
In any event, talk about reductionism! Now, they have made technology, river basins and animal body plans all subsets of evolution, and evolution, they say, belongs in the physics department. Did it never occur to these three engineers (including one from Boeing) that airplanes are intelligently designed?
No. Because the new Big Idea is that the mind is not real so there is no such thing as intelligence or design in any conventional sense.
Most don’t quite like to spell it out, but that is what they mean. These engineers are simply going with the flow.
Note: Berra used for successive models of the Corvette to illustrate descent with modification. Which was fine, except that it ignored the automotive engineer and his test bench. Except, that is now seen as a feature, not a bug.
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