"Why do riverbeds, blood vessels, and lightning bolts all look alike? This extraordinary book proposes a law of nature whose power is matched only by its simplicity." David Eagleman


Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organization
Written by Adrian Bejan and Peder Zane

Synopsis
In this groundbreaking book, Adrian Bejan takes the recurring patterns in nature—trees, tributaries, air passages, neural networks, and lightning bolts—and reveals how a single principle of physics, the Constructal Law, accounts for the evolution of these and all other designs in our world.

Everything—from biological life to inanimate systems—generates shape and structure and evolves in a sequence of ever-improving designs in order to facilitate flow. River basins, cardiovascular systems, and bolts of lightning are very efficient flow systems to move a current—of water, blood, or electricity. Likewise, the more complex architecture of animals evolve to cover greater distance per unit of useful energy, or increase their flow across the land. Such designs also appear in human organizations, like the hierarchical "flowcharts" or reporting structures in corporations and political bodies.

All are governed by the same principle, known as the Constructal Law, and configure and reconfigure themselves over time to flow more efficiently. Written in an easy style that achieves clarity without sacrificing complexity, Design in Nature is a paradigm-shifting book that will fundamentally transform our understanding of the world around us.

http://www.randomhouse.com/book/211730/ ... peder-zane

Sounds very interesting!

This book is $27.95. Wow.

I'm sure I'm not understanding the concept based on the blurb, but the question "Why do riverbeds, blood vessels, and lightning bolts all look alike?" doesn't seem like there is some great mystery to be solved. What else are they going to look like?

By its very nature the word design implies a designer.

Chris OConnor wrote:This book is $27.95. Wow.

ant wrote:By its very nature the word design implies a designer.

I agree that the word is one that implies 'something going on.' There's no avoiding that; it might be implicit in our brains to think teleologically, in terms of intent and purpose. If the authors are giving us a principle that governs the development of every phenomenon, they're talking about a force, apparently, that has this unifying effect. But the sense of 'a designer' I don't think needs to be assumed. It's hard, again, for our brains to grasp the way emergent processes might work, that is without any intention or prior direction.

Dexter wrote:I'm sure I'm not understanding the concept based on the blurb, but the question "Why do riverbeds, blood vessels, and lightning bolts all look alike?" doesn't seem like there is some great mystery to be solved. What else are they going to look like?

But considering the very different purposes of these systems, isn't there some significance to their similar pattern? There seems to be something here to be explained.

Who's gonna spend the 27 bucks to find out? Not me, probably. In the old days, before Borders vanished from the small city nearby, I could hole up there and read a good chunk of a book. Yeah, I'm one reason why Borders sank. They made the store too inviting.

Ant, what is so funny about me pointing out the high price of this book?

Design is a tricky word to use in this context, made so by the unfortunate tendancy of quote miners to sieze on some phrase and use it as alleged support of their far different concepts of a-prior assumption.

But it is a topic worthy of considerable study. Nature does abide by the function of mathematical equations. As if going by some design. What we are looking at is generally the most efficient way for things to proceed, and that efficiency can be represented in mathematical terms.

The path electricity takes to ground looks like a beautiful design but it's the product of mathematics.

Check out this video



and actually her whole site

http://vihart.com/

These patterns are the result of emergent complexity. Diamonds look the way they do because of the way carbon atoms stack. It's a beautiful regular shape dictated by the function of the elementary components. Carbon atoms make a diamond shape because that's the way they clump together. it is an inherant trait of their chemical properties.

What would be real evidence of a designer would be for things to form shapes that are not consistant with their chemical properties. If lightning struck in succession spelling out "To be or not to be" or "Let there be Light!" in defiance of the way electricity is SUPPOSED to behave based on natural law, then you could make a case that something crazy is happening.

Suppose you had a diamond, but when you examined it you discovered that it was made of an isotope of bismuth, rather than carbon. That is a possible designer working in ways inconsistant with a naturalistic explanation.

Suppose we find an exoplanet as far from it's star as the keiper belt, and yet has perfect goldielocks characteristics, that may be evidence of supernatural design.

If we are just talking about the emergent complexity of quantum mechanics, it is unfortunate to use the word design because it illicits automatic questions of "who designed it?"