Electronics and Evolution

Abstract

Technology can be thought of as a man-made substitute for natural evolution in the process of adjusting to our environment and in which many of the steps of natural evolution are being repeated. The modern human being is the culmination of an eon-long evolutionary process that began with the existence of individual simple cells and culminated in the complex organism of today. In the process a great variety of specialized cells—such as muscle cells, nerve cells, blood cells, and many others—evolved to carry out the functions of energy conversion, communication, and transportation which are necessary for the existence of a complicated organism. The increasingly complex specimens which developed are the survivors of a natural selection which made dominant those species best equipped to deal with the hardships encountered in the environment. It may be that the evolutionary development of man has not ceased—though there is some reason to believe that he does represent about as much organized complexity as can be satisfactorily achieved with components having the properties of biological materials—but even if it hasn’t stopped, it is a very slow process.