Stats for nerds
3recommend
5mentions
3people
2015–2024years
100% recommend
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I recommend this book a lot, but 'Cats’ Paws and Catapults: Mechanical Worlds of Nature and People' (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/223609.Cats_Paws_and_Cat...) is a great look at how biology inspires human design.
One idea that is important (IIRC from this book) is that many examples are really inspiration, and not direct copying of design. Biology works very differently to human machines, with very different constraints, so when engineers and designers try to stick too closely to the biological original, it may not work out very well!
- Cats paws and catapults - I saw this first recommended on a different HN thread. Great comparison of natural and man-made mechanical systems that changed my intuitions about why things in the world are built the way they are.
From Strength to Strength, Brooks - it's a self-help book for midlife crises. Has all the normal issues of self-help books but I found the exploration of the acceptance of inevitable age related decline in some abilities interesting and useful.
- Heh, I'm somewhat the opposite, as I went from a degree in biochemistry into bioinformatics (protein folds and structure) and have an amateur interest in maths.
I often recommend the book 'Cats' Paws and Catapults' by Steven Vogel, which discusses the differences between human and biological engineering. There are very different constraints, as well as the more obvious difference between intelligently directed design (by humans) and evolutionary design.
It's not totally true that our engineering is simpler than biological systems. After all, we can now manipulate matter down to the atomic level. There have been attempts to move towards self-assembling systems, or even self-repairing ones. Not quite on the same scale or sophistication as biological systems, of course.
Is a modern computer chip more complex than a virus? Is a large connected system of computers more complex than a mycelial network? Are there more parts connected in more ways in a nuclear power station as there are in a simple bacterial cell?
I think it is definitely worth considering the similarities and differences.
- A beautiful analogy ... unfortunately just an analogy. One book I liked in theoretical biology was "Cats Paws and Catapults" by Steve Vogel (978-0393319903) about how biology and technology adopt different designs due to use of different materials.
Simply put, both birds and planes have wings but one if a flexible membrane that flaps and the other is a fixed structure with a jet engine.
- I was lucky that during my research time I got to know Dawkin's work. And the journey started there:
1. "Cats' Paws and Catapults: Mechanical Worlds of Nature and People" by Steven Vogel. If you were fascinated by the wings of birds or little waves behind the plants in water read this. Fascinating book!
2. "The meme machine" by Susan Blackmore. Starting off where Dawkin's book ended.
3. "Three steps to yes" by Gene Bedell, beside Getting to Yes already mentioned here.
