No, really. Berra’s blunder is now official Darwinian science
From ScienceDaily:
A UCLA-led team of researchers has taken a unique approach to explain the way in which technologies evolve in modern society. Borrowing a technique that biologists might use to study the evolution of plants or animals, the scientists plotted the “births” and “deaths” of every American-made car and truck model from 1896 to 2014.
…
Based on the study, the researchers can project how the electric car marketplace will evolve over the next several years. Alfaro said the field now is in an early phase of rapid diversification, and although it’s likely that many more electric and hybrid models will be introduced over the next 15 to 20 years, many won’t survive for very long due to increasing competition. This, he said, will eventually lead to consolidation, with a small number of dominant models that will thrive.
Ultimately, Gjesfjeld said, the technique could help us make sense of the bewildering array of technologies humans have created. “Despite the use of numerous technologies in our everyday life, we lack a basic understanding of how all this technological diversity came to be,” he said.More. Paper. (public access) – Erik Gjesfjeld, Jonathan Chang, Daniele Silvestro, Christopher Kelty, Michael Alfaro. Competition and extinction explain the evolution of diversity in American automobiles. Palgrave Communications, 2016; 2: 16019 DOI: 10.1057/palcomms.2016.19
Because cars and other technology products are 100% design, we must assume that the “evolution” paradigm used to describe them is a paradigm of design.
The prediction about electric cars will likely hold (“many won’t survive for very long due to increasing competition”) but one could foresee that without any resort to theories about biological evolution. Everyone will want their hand in and many governments encourage it, but such programs are often mainly job creators, not industry creators. You know, “shovel-ready projects.”
And this is priceless:
Despite the use of numerous technologies in our everyday life, we lack a basic understanding of how all this technological diversity came to be,” he said.
Huh? Human ingenuity applied to the need to solve problems doesn’t explain anything? Oh wait. These people are probably naturalists. The mind is an illusion, right?
See also: New Scientist astounds: Information is physical
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