2007-04-17 #1

Non-Obvious Optimization

What does sixty-five million years of evolution buy you? How about eons of successive incremental improvements guided by the ever vigilant hand of Darwinian selection? The answer of course is something "fitter". Something which is better able to compete and thrive in its environment. Simply: "something better".

Now consider the case of the T.Rex and the Chicken. For those who are visual-learners or don't want to be bothered to read the article, let me summarize graphically (1):

+ (65 million years) =

It just goes to show you that path of optimization isn't always obvious.

1. I know that the chicken isn't a direct descendant of the T.Rex; more of a great-nephew really, but the T.Rex does belong to the branch of dinosaurs most closely related to modern birds and according to the article above, chickens are the closest known living match to T.Rex based on protein similarities.