A New Perspective for Risk Management: A Study of the Design of Generic Technology with a Matroid Model in C-K Theory - Principia Designae: Pre-Design, Design, and Post-Design - page 205

changing over time and separate connected subgraphs that can suddenly appear
useful if, at a certain time t + q, F(t + q) suddenly reuses some of the “old”
functions and hence the connected component becomes relevant again.
13.4.3 One Application: Evolutionary Models in Biology
The dynamic model of the design of generic technologies might be relevant for
some technological evolutions; but one can underline that actually this model might
even be relevant for models of evolutionary process in biology.
Suppose that one represent a species as a designer who master certain “technol-
ogies” to address external conditions; suppose that these conditions evolve over
time but the species never completely adapt to one context but keep a “robust”
strategy by adapting to several contexts. The species actually acts as a designer of a
(partially) generic technology. What does our model help to explain:
- The model is coherent with stasis and punctuated equilibria: if the context
evolves inside the set of alternatives addressed by the species, the “technologies”
are not changed; the species evolve only when an “original” function, out of the
robustness scope, appears.
- The model is coherent with exaptation situations (Gould 1987 ) : exaptation is a
situation where an organ (a technology) is developed to adapt to a situation—the
panda's thumb was developed to go up and run in trees at a time where panda
were smaller and lived in a dense forest context-; then this function is less
needed but the organ remains and the species go on evolving, keeping the
original trait—the panda doesn't need to go up and run in trees but changes in
his environment lead him step by step to eat bambous-; and finally the function
“holding a branch” become important again but this time to eat bamboo: the
panda's thumb becomes important again.
Hence our dynamic model could account for contemporary forms of complex,
evolutionary processes in biology!
13.4.4 One Application: Evolutionary Models in Biology
We already underlined (part 2) how our model could help to design generic
technology (constant-rank extensions and rank-increase extensions). Some lessons
can also be learnt from the dynamic model: it appears that the critical issue is the
emergence of the new function. In part 1 we considered that this new function could
be interpreted as a form of “expansive design” in nature. In a risk management
perspective, it is also important to manage the emergence of the new function. It
consists in launching “exploratory projects” that help to extend the list of “risks”
(or F in our model).