Re: Minimization principal for evolution

"Don" <Don.Steiger@xxxxxxxxx> wrote

From my intuitive understanding of physics it would seem to me that
evolution should satisfy some sort of minimization principal (e.g.
energy minimization). Has anybody ever come across such a principal?

No really.
An organism wants to minimise energy wasted when it injests food, so
basically this function is "minimised" by devices like stomachs and
mitochondrial glucose cycles and so on.
However it is a balancing act. Once efficiency starts getting close to 100%,
the last little bit demands excessive digestion times, or a highly selective
diet, or huge storage capacity, or other features which damage total
fitness.
So in fact energy efficiency is not minimimised. Faeces contain quite a few
calories, and only a few animals, like the rabbit, bother trying to extract
that energy further.



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