LoBue: Enterprise Evolution: Concepts: Adaptation

OVERVIEW

Overview of Concepts & Ideas
Introduction

CONCEPTS

Evolution & Selection
Nonlinearity
Self-Organization

TERMS

Adaptation
Agent
Complexity
Emergence
Feedback
Fitness Landscapes
Internal Models
Multi-Agent Computer Models
Nested Hierarchies
Randomness & Chance

RECOMMENDED READING

TERMS: ADAPTATION

	"Amy is adapting well to being in college."
	"Ford adapted to the challenge of General Motor selling cars in different colors by making different color model cars themselves."
	"Cheetahs adapted to their environment by being able to run faster."

Each of these examples uses the concept of adaptation, but in slightly different ways. In the first two examples, adaptation is used in the sense of a change in how an individual or a company acts in a new situation or environment. If the environment changes, and an individual or organization did not change (adapt), then perhaps Amy might drop out of college, or Ford might have gone out of business. Adaptation is a consequence of evolution, and also relates to the fitness of an individual, organism, or organization (see also agents) for surviving in a particular environment.

The third example, cheetahs, relates to a biological example of adaptation and evolution. A biologist might say that adaptation occurs when the structure or function of an organism changes in ways that improve the chances for survival and reproduction in its environment. But there is an important difference between the cheetah, Amy, and Ford. For the ancient cheetahs, the structural changes did not occur during the lifetime of a particular cheetah. A single ancestor of modern cheetahs did not "try" to run faster to catch its prey and then pass down a faster running gene to its offspring (genetically, this is impossible). As we mentioned in the discussion of evolution, a cheetah ancestor was born with a random mutation permitting it to run faster, which improved its chances to live long enough to reproduce and pass on the "running faster" gene to its offspring. This is evolution by natural selection.

Here is the big difference between cheetahs, Amy, and Ford: Essentially, the adaptations to the changing environment that occurred for cheetahs over time were done "blind." The mutations for running faster were random occurrences. In contrast, as a result of being a self-reflective person or organization, the adaptations that Amy or Ford made were probably the result of nonrandom or “conscious” decisions. For example, Ford adapted by starting to produce cars in different colors. Humans, either as individuals or in organizations, can in principle be much more flexible and adaptive than biological organisms such as cheetahs (or ants, or birds, etc.)

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