Volver a las metáforas Darwinianas: la evolución de los artefactos Back to Darwinian metaphors: The evolution of artefacts

Evolutionary concepts may have great appeal when studying material culture and its designed objects. As a matter of fact, there is robust tradition in using biological analogies to understand designs, as it occurs in the field of bionics, where the simulation of vital processes advocates not only an approach of a purely cognitive nature but, rather, an operative programme allowing the translation of isomorphisms between living organisms and technology into effective design solutions. More generally, natural sciences offer an uncommonly rich apparatus for analogies to be applied to the domains of the sciences of the artificial. But how widely applicable are Darwinian metaphors? To which extent do the Darwinian concepts of variation and selection provide meaningful theoretical tools across product innovation? What can they add to the analysis of product designs? To this end, this study takes the form of a literature review about evolutionary approaches to the analysis of technological change, along with a number of interpretations about the analogies between natural evolution and the dynamics of product variety generation.