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Design Evolution
By Christina Agapakis / Scientific American
Using the words evolution and design in the same paragraph, let alone together in the title of a blog post, can make biologists very uncomfortable. Design is something that humans do on purpose, and natural selection doesn’t “do” anything on purpose. Anthropomorphizing and giving intention to evolution is a big time no-no.
Synthetic biologists, however, talk about design all the time. We design genetic networks and metabolic pathways and we try to understand the logic of how cells have evolved to develop better “design principles.” We use evolution to help us optimize enzymes and pathways, designing schemes and selections for directed evolution, and we worry about what will happen to the products and technologies built with synthetic biology if they continue to evolve.
Variation, mutation, and evolution of a product that is made by or actually is a living organism has to be carefully managed and controlled in biotechnology and industrial food production, and will play a large role in future synthetic biologies. But what about other kinds of human-designed products? Can concepts from evolution ever apply to the nonliving world?
continue at Scientific American:
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