Physics, Evolution and Mysticism

Whenever hearing or reading about evolution, it is treated as if it had a consciousness of its own. Think about it. Evolution does its own selecting, has wisdom and other characteristics are assigned to it through the fallacy of reification. When the religious nature of evolution is pointed out, the Evo Sith will say that evolution is simply a biological process (and established fact). Yet, we see that evolution is treated like a living mystical entity.

Physics has been appealed to as a driving force behind evolution. We may be dealing with a form of pantheism, and rejecting the truth: God is the master designer.

Some recent evolutionary papers appear to make physical laws not just constraints on natural selection, but guiding hands that build optimal designs.

Hydrodynamics and the perfect transporter:  In cell membranes, aquaporins are hourglass-shaped channels that allow water molecules through but block other molecules.  Their “remarkable  selectivity,” coupled with “optimal permeability,” is admired by biophysicists – so much so that authors of a paper in PNAS about aquaporins [AQPs] remarked, “in a biomimetic perspective, these results provide guidelines to design artificial nanopores with optimal performances.”  How, then, did evolution stumble upon such design perfection?  “This suggests that the hourglass shape of aquaporins could be the result of a natural selection process toward optimal hydrodynamic transport.”   This statement could mean that natural selection found the optimal shape through blind search, but more implicitly that the laws of hydrodynamics lured natural selection toward “excellent water selectivity.”  Most of the paper focused on why the geometrical shape is so effective:

The aim of this work was to determine the effect of geometry and BCs [boundary conditions] on hydrodynamic entrance effects in biconical nanochannels. Using FE [finite-element] calculations, we have shown that compared with a plain cylindrical pipe, a biconical channel of optimal angle can provide a spectacular increase in hydrodynamic permeability. A simplified model based on entrance effects and lubrication approximation rationalizes the observed behavior. Although speculative, this could indicate that the hourglass geometry of AQPs results from a shape optimization, to reduce end effects and maximize water permeability.

Read the rest of "Does Physics Drive Evolution?"