Nesse Randolph M, Labov Jay B, Madhavan Guru
Center for Evolution and Medicine, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
PNAS Nexus. 2025 Apr 2;4(4):pgaf086. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf086. eCollection 2025 Apr.
Engineers have long studied the origins of design features that make machines prone to failure, but biologists have only recently begun investigating why organisms have traits that make them susceptible to disease. This article compares explanations for vulnerability to failure in machines with explanations for traits that make bodies vulnerable to disease. Some global explanations are relevant for both: design deficiencies, corrupted plans, assembly variations, incorrect operating environment, and trade-offs. These similarities suggest that a common framework for failure analysis could be valuable. However, a closer look at each of the 10 global categories reveals fundamental differences: machines are built to match an ideal blueprint, while species have no perfect genome or form. Design trade-offs in machines involve balancing multiple factors such as performance, robustness, and costs, while biological trade-offs maximize only gene transmission, often at the expense of health and lifespan. Detailed consideration of these and other differences reveals how the metaphor of body as a designed machine fosters tacit creationism that misrepresents the nature of organically complex systems.
长期以来，工程师们一直在研究导致机器容易出现故障的设计特征的起源，但生物学家直到最近才开始探究为什么生物体具有使其易患疾病的特征。本文将机器故障易发性的解释与使身体易患疾病的特征的解释进行了比较。一些全局性的解释对两者都适用：设计缺陷、计划有误、装配差异、操作环境不当以及权衡取舍。这些相似之处表明，一个通用的故障分析框架可能会很有价值。然而，仔细审视这10个全局性类别中的每一个，会发现一些根本差异：机器是按照理想蓝图制造的，而物种没有完美的基因组或形态。机器中的设计权衡涉及平衡多个因素，如性能、耐用性和成本，而生物权衡仅使基因传递最大化，往往以健康和寿命为代价。对这些差异以及其他差异的详细思考揭示了将身体比作设计好的机器这一比喻是如何助长了隐性神创论，而这种神创论歪曲了有机复杂系统的本质。
