Why Reuse Design?

The vast majority of living things don't. You're thinking only of Animalia, Buz. Bacteria and Archaea don't have gender. Unicellular life does in a few instances. Plants have male and female gametes, but they both come from a single hermaphroditic organism in the majority of cases. Nearly-spherical planets and stars require only two things: gravity, and construction materials of less-than-infinite strength. A 500-mile diameter chunk of granite will break and deform itself with only its own gravity to end up near-spherical. No deliberate design needed.

They don't. And even among animals sex is often transient, determined by temperatures during incubation or by necessities during life. Some even change sex during their life stages, others can change sex when a new male is needed, still others are bisexual and in many cases there are three or more sexes. Then there are the varieties of reproductive methods. And THEN, look at plants and the variety of different designs found there.But there are even better examples where biological critters do not reuse common designs. Look at the variety of locomotive systems, types and number of eyes, bones or no bones, bones or cartilage, internal or external skeletons, hair or feathers, vertical or horizontal.Finally, as I have pointed out in the past, the GOOD ideas do not get adopted across all critters. The human brain does not get adopted in all critters, the eagle's eyes, the Vicuna's blood cells.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

The logical answer is that there was one designer for sexual reproduction and (at least) one for asexual reproduction. Design-by-committee would also explain differences between bats and birds and between fish and whales.

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"It appears that many of you turn to Hebrew to escape the English...." -- Joseppi

And let's not forget the 1000+ mating types of many fungi

Because gas is cheap. In a world where gas is expensive, regenerative braking technology makes a lot more sense, and automakers invest the time and resources needed to prototype alternative means of storing energy and recovering a car's momentum instead of turning it into heat.In a world where gas is cheap it doesn't make any sense to bother. It's cheaper to spend the gas than to design the system. Of course, advance a plan to stimulate the development of these technologies via gas tax that makes gas reliably expensive, and it's all "tax hikes on the poor!" and "global warming is a hoax!" mostly from your side of the aisle, Buz.

The gas needed to push that extra weight around would more than swamp whatever gas you saved by regenerating momentum after braking.

Hi Buz, Springs, torsion bars (which are just long twisted springs), flying wheels, compressed air, etc etc have been tried.In ALL cases the storage medium takes up significant weight and space (too much for a bicycle).So far electric has the best storage to weight ratio, and even there it is not good. these are all toys and have limited range: I might be able to get to work on one (5 miles), but riding my bike is easier, same speeds, less to go wrong, and costs me nothing.Solar powered cars are probably better (see solar car races) and they are leading the challenge to provide better storage/weight I do, but that doesn't change detroit.Enjoy.

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So one reason that humans reuse designs is that we have limited knowledge, for whatever reason. Do you agree?

The second reason given thus far is that humans are limited by time.So thus far we have limited knowledge and limited time as being factors as to why humans reuse designs.

Ultimately, that is the question. Thus far, the only reasons that humans do resuse designs is because we have limited knowledge and limited time. If you are going to claim that it makes sense that the designer would reuse designs then the designer must also be limited like us, having limited time and limited knowledge.

However, according to the Bible both of those constraints applied equally to God. Creation itself seemed to be on a deadline, a six day contract. Further, existing designs were reused if possible. Look at finding a helpmeet for Adam. Before trying a new design God tried all the critters it had already created, just seemed like none fit (I did hear that Adam was pretty happy with the sheep but the tiger just didn't do it for him). Even then, instead of starting from scratch God took an old pieces part, a rib, to be the basis for the new design and only modified components slightly, an innie here instead of an outtie, a prominent enhancement or two as a model branding.BUT...the job got done and on schedule, saw that it was very good and God got the day off to rest.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

You can add budgetary constraints and laziness to that list.

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Have you ever been to an American wedding? Where's the vodka? Where's the marinated herring?!
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Real things always push back.
-William James

You can also add that sometimes we reuse a design because it is the optimal design to use in a given situationEdited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Can you give an example?

There are lots of examples at the MOST general level. For example round works best for a wheel.Where that breaks down though is when we look at life. There we do not find that the same design gets reused, and that optimal seldom is relevant.When we look at flight for example we find a variety of designs, feathered wings, skin flaps, flattened bodies and extended fins, and that is just in animals. When we look at plants there is a whole nudder set of unique solutions to the challenge of flight.The same holds true in almost any design challenge in living things. Time after time living things reinvent the wheel. Whole different sensory systems, locomotive systems, reproductive systems, energy gathering systems, waste disposal systems.Living things don't show design.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!