Optimal designs, rugged fitness landscapes and the Texas sharpshooter fallacy

[Giltil (Gilbert Thill)]

@Faizal_Ali

@Giltil

The data gathered by the authors come from in vitro studies. This is a huge limitation, for enzymes might appear suboptimal in vitro, under laboratory conditions, but be well-optimized to their natural cellular environments which are not replicated accurately in experimental setups.

I don’t think you understand what is meant by the term “optimized.” If a particular arrangement is well suited to a number of different situations, that is the opposite of “optimized”

I don’t know why you resort to this argument for it is irrelevant to what I said about enzymes. Anyway, to double down, your argument is wrong. A designer, let say an engineer, can have in mind to design a system that is optimally versatile so that it can then be fine-tuned to a number of different contexts. I would say that the vertebrate limb layout is a case in point.

@Faizal_Ali

Whereas, the observation that many different arrangements well-suited for multiple situations can be traced back to an arrangement that is less specifically suited to any one of those situations is exactly what evolution would predict

Not sure this is universally true regarding evolution. Anyway, note that the same expectation applies also to design, as shown by the bicycle example.