Design Evolution And The Law

In this groundbreaking book, Adrian Bejan takes the recurring patterns in nature—trees, tributaries, air passages, neural networks, and lightning bolts—and reveals how a single principle of physics, the constructal law, accounts for the evolution of these and many other designs in our world. Everything—from biological life to inanimate systems—generates shape and structure and evolves in a sequence of ever-improving designs in order to facilitate flow. River basins, cardiovascular systems, and bolts of lightning are very efficient flow systems to move a current—of water, blood, or electricity. Likewise, the more complex architecture of animals evolve to cover greater distance per unit of useful energy, or increase their flow across the land. Such designs also appear in human organizations, like the hierarchical “flowcharts” or reporting structures in corporations and political bodies. All are governed by the same principle, known as the constructal law, and configure and reconfigure themselves over time to flow more efficiently. Written in an easy style that achieves clarity without sacrificing complexity, Design in Nature is a paradigm-shifting book that will fundamentally transform our understanding of the world around us.

This book focuses on product design which is evolving conceptually and practically with advances in technology. Product design is no longer solely about product stylization and decoration, but rather about providing a holistic product experience for the consumer. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, product designs will increasingly communicate not only to our eyes, but to our other senses as well. This book examines the frameworks for the protection of product designs in New Zealand and Australia and evaluates the appropriateness of expanding legal mechanisms for the accommodation of product design evolution. The value of more holistic design protection is balanced against other important considerations such as the "right to repair". The book not only anticipates the extent to which product design will cater to senses other than visual, but also provides a novel framework (with reference to industry examples) for discerning originality in such work for the purposes of copyright. This book also makes suggestions for how designs can be protected from foreseeable infringement (analogous to copyright infringement of music and movies on file sharing networks) resulting from future advances in technologies such as 3D printing and virtual reality. .

This book focuses on product design which is evolving conceptually and practically with advances in technology. Product design is no longer solely about product stylization and decoration, but rather about providing a holistic product experience for the consumer. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, product designs will increasingly communicate not only to our eyes, but to our other senses as well. This book examines the frameworks for the protection of product designs in New Zealand and Australia and evaluates the appropriateness of expanding legal mechanisms for the accommodation of product design evolution. The value of more holistic design protection is balanced against other important considerations such as the “right to repair". The book not only anticipates the extent to which product design will cater to senses other than visual, but also provides a novel framework (with reference to industry examples) for discerning originality in such work for the purposes of copyright. This book also makes suggestions for how designs can be protected from foreseeable infringement (analogous to copyright infringement of music and movies on file sharing networks) resulting from future advances in technologies such as 3D printing and virtual reality.

The book begins with familiar designs found all around and inside us (such as the ‘trees’ of river basins, human lungs, blood and city traffic). It then shows how all flow systems are driven by power from natural engines everywhere, and how they are endlessly shaped because of freedom. Finally, Professor Bejan explains how people, like everything else that moves on earth, are driven by power derived from our “engines” that consume fuel and food, and that our movement dissipates the power completely and changes constantly for greater access, economies of scale, efficiency, innovation and life. Written for wide audiences of all ages, including readers interested in science, patterns in nature, similarity and non-uniformity, history and the future, and those just interested in having fun with ideas, the book shows how many “design change” concepts acquire a solid scientific footing and how they exist with the evolution of nature, society, technology and science.

In this book William A. Dembski brilliantly argues that intelligent design provides a crucial link between science and theology. This is a pivotal work from a thinker whom Phillip Johnson calls "one of the most important of the `design' theorists."

Are life and the universe a mindless accident--the blind outworking of laws governing cosmic, chemical, and biological evolution? That's the official story many of us were taught somewhere along the way. But what does the science actually say? Drawing on recent discoveries in astronomy, cosmology, chemistry, biology, and paleontology, Evolution and Intelligent Design in a Nutshell shows how the latest scientific evidence suggests a very different story.

Design happens everywhere, whether in animate objects (e.g., dendritic lung structures, bacterial colonies, and corals), inanimate patterns (river basins, beach slope, and dendritic crystals), social dynamics (pedestrian traffic flows), or engineered systems (heat dissipation in electronic circuitry). This “design in nature” often takes on remarkably similar patterns, which can be explained under one unifying Constructal Law. This book explores the unifying power of the Constructal Law and its applications in all domains of design generation and evolution, ranging from biology and geophysics to globalization, energy, sustainability, and security. The Constructal Law accounts for the universal tendency of flow systems to morph into evolving configurations that provide greater and easier access over time. The Constructal Law resolves the many and contradictory ad hoc statements of “optimality”, end design, and destiny in nature, such as minimum and maximum entropy production and minimum and maximum flow resistance, and also explains the designs that are observed and copied in biomimetics. Constructal Law and the Unifying Principle of Design covers the fundamentals of Constructal Theory and Design, as well as presenting a variety of state-of-the-art applications. Experts from the biological, physical and social sciences demonstrate the unification of all design phenomena in nature, and apply this knowledge to novel designs in modern engineering, such as vascularization for self-healing and self-cooling materials for aircraft, and tree fins and cavities for heat transfer enhancement.

Recently a new battle has emerged between science and religion. The battle has focused on intelligent design (ID) and the numerous legal, philosophical and educational concerns surrounding it. Resolution of these concerns centers on two questions: Is ID science? And is ID religion? Despite the fact that ID does not meet the standards of scientific rigor, ID proponents have been able to create a remarkably well-designed marketing plan aimed at imposing a theistic naturalism in schools and scientific discourse. Both the ID movement and some of its most vociferous opponents have a vested interest in suggesting that science, especially evolutionary biology, and religion are incompatible. This book presents a philosophical and legal counterpoint by demonstrating the compatibility between religion and evolutionary biology and the incompatibility between ID and mainstream science.