Table Of ContentT H E F R O N T I E R S C O L L E C T I O N
Caterina AM La Porta
Stefano Zapperi
Luciano Pilotti
(Eds.)
U N DE R S TA N DI NG
I N NOVAT ION
T H ROUGH
E X A P TAT ION
THE FRONTIERS COLLECTION
Series Editors
Avshalom C. Elitzur, Iyar, Israel Institute of Advanced Research, Rehovot, Israel
Zeeya Merali, Foundational Questions Institute, Decatur, GA, USA
Thanu Padmanabhan, Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics
(IUCAA), Pune, India
MaximilianSchlosshauer,DepartmentofPhysics,UniversityofPortland,Portland,
OR, USA
Mark P. Silverman, Department of Physics, Trinity College, Hartford, CT, USA
Jack A. Tuszynski, Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB,
Canada
Rüdiger Vaas, Redaktion Astronomie, Physik, bild der wissenschaft,
Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany
The books in this collection are devoted to challenging and open problems at the
forefrontofmodernscienceandscholarship,includingrelatedphilosophicaldebates.
In contrast to typical research monographs, however, they strive to present their
topicsinamanneraccessiblealsotoscientificallyliteratenon-specialistswishingto
gaininsightintothedeeperimplicationsandfascinatingquestionsinvolved.Takenas
awhole,theseriesreflectstheneedforafundamentalandinterdisciplinaryapproach
to modern science and research. Furthermore, it is intended to encourage active
academics in all fields to ponder over important and perhaps controversial issues
beyond their own speciality. Extending from quantum physics and relativity to
entropy, consciousness, language and complex systems—the Frontiers Collection
willinspirereaderstopushbackthefrontiersoftheirownknowledge.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5342
Caterina AM La Porta
(cid:129)
Stefano Zapperi Luciano Pilotti
(cid:129)
Editors
Understanding Innovation
Through Exaptation
123
Editors
Caterina AM LaPorta StefanoZapperi
Department ofEnvironmental Science Department ofPhysics
andPolicy, Centerfor Complexity Centerfor Complexity andBiosystems
andBiosystems University of Milan
University of Milan, Milan,Italy
Milan,Italy
CNR- Consiglio Nazionale delleRicerche
Istituto di Biofisica
Genova,Italy
Innovation ForWell-Being
AndEnvironment (CRC-I-WE)
University of Milan
Milan,Italy
Luciano Pilotti
Department ofEnvironmental
Science andPolicy
University of Milan
Milan,Italy
ISSN 1612-3018 ISSN 2197-6619 (electronic)
TheFrontiers Collection
ISBN978-3-030-45783-9 ISBN978-3-030-45784-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45784-6
©SpringerNatureSwitzerlandAG2020
Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart
of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
orinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilar
methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfrom
therelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained
hereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade.Thepublisherremainsneutralwithregard
tojurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmapsandinstitutionalaffiliations.
ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbytheregisteredcompanySpringerNatureSwitzerlandAG
Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:Gewerbestrasse11,6330Cham,Switzerland
Preface: Why Read This Book
Twentyyearsago,IBM’sDeepBluecomputerstunnedtheworldbybecomingthe
first machine to beat a reigning world chess champion in a six-game match. The
supercomputer’s success against an incredulous Garry Kasparov sparked contro-
versy over how a machine had managed to beat a grandmaster. The possibility for
moderncomputerstoprocesslargeamountsofdatainashorttimeisastrengththat
we lack as human beings. Kasparov later wrote in his book: “If I had to think
whether this was a blessing or a curse that I became world champion when
machines were really weak, and I ended my professional career when computers
wereunbeatable,Ithinkit’smorelikeablessing.Iwaspartofsomethingunique”.
More recentlyin2016,thestrongest Go player, theSouth Korean LeeSe-dol, was
beatenbytheAlphaGoprogram,basedonartificialintelligence.Foryears,Gowas
consideredbeyondreachevenforthemostsophisticatedcomputeralgorithms.The
ancient board game isnotoriously complex, with10170 board configurations, more
thanalltheatomsintheobservableuniverse.Despitethis,AlphaGohadapparently
no problem in finding more effective moves than its human opponent.
These and other recent achievements of artificial intelligence may suggest that
computersarealreadycapableofproducinginnovativeideas.Isthisreallythecase?
Whileitisdifficulttoanswerthisquestion,wecantakeastepbackwardandtryto
understand how new ideas occur in the first place. Innovation, defined as the
capability to create new ideas, creative thoughtsor new imagination, isconsidered
stilltobeapeculiarcharacteristicofhumanbeings.Threemainpointsemergefrom
thisbook:theimportanceforresearcherstobefreefromanyformofprejudiceand
look at the world with an open mind. Secondly, be ready to be contaminated by
research in different fields and finally, mix together natural and artificial reality,
abstraction and concreteness, rationality and emotion. As a consequence of this, a
continuous interchange between exploration and exploitation, specialization and
de-specialization emerges as a critical element for innovation.
The possibility to move randomly, jump into different and unrelated fields, use
different methods and approaches, make mistakes are all part of the business. We
have to keep in mind that information is always incomplete and our exploration
of the world uses both rationality and irrational exploration of the unknown.
v
vi Preface:WhyReadThisBook
Explorationintothemechanismsproducinginnovationnaturallyleadstotheconcept
ofexaptation,introducedinevolutionarybiologybyGouldandVrbain1982.They
described the possibility that already existing traits would be exploited for new
purposes, throughout evolution. Observing exaptation in different areas of human
activityhasbeenshowntobeextremelyrelevanttounderstandhowhumanbeings
are able to produce innovation and find novel solutionsfor complex problems.
The present book discusses the role of exaptation in different disciplines
including biomedicine, physics and materials science, economics, social sciences,
computer science, psychology and architecture. We illustrate how progress in all
those disciplines can beviewed throughthelensesofexaptation,asamacroscopic
picture of the world composed by many pieces all working together in a complex
interconnected system.
The book starts with a chapter by Plevani and Sanguettoli, who describe the
theoretical background underlying the original idea of expatation by Gould and
Vrba and its impact on philosophy and biology. They also discuss the critique of
exaptationduetothephilosopherDanielDannett,showingthat,infact,thisauthor
implicitly accepted many conceptual implications of exptation. The following
chapters present concrete examples of the relevance of exptation for “hard
sciences”, such as mathematics or physics. Micheletti illustrates in chapter
“Nature-Inspired Optimization Methods: How Ants, Bees, Cuckoos and Other
Friends May Improve the Work of Mathematicians” how it is possible to develop
an algorithm that isable to enclose the main traitsof the evolutionary success of a
species or a society and reuse it. Zaiser and Zapperi discuss the importance of
exaptationintheoreticalphysicsandmaterialsscience,discussinghowthisconcept
iscentralinthefieldofmaterialsdiscovery.Chapter“ExaptationfortheGoodand
the Bad: Regeneration and Cancer” focuses on biomedicine considering the basic
physiological process, such as regeneration, and pathological conditions such as
cancer from the point of view of exaptation. All these chapters highlight form a
differentanglethecommonbackgroundofacoreofelementsorprocessesthatare
reused in different contexts.
In chapter “Quantifying Exaptation in Scientific Evolution”, Ferreira et al.
explore the notion that exaptation can be quantified from the usage of scientific
ideas in domains other than the area that they were originally applied. In their
originalapproach,theauthorsidentifydistinctivepatternsofexaptationandexpose
specific examples of papers that display those patterns. The outcome of this new
approach is the possibility to quantify exaptation phenomena in the context of
scientific evolution. In chapter “Exaptation and Beyond: Multilevel Function
Evolution in Biology and Technology”, Andriani et al. discuss differences and
similarities between the natural and the artificial world, showing that when exap-
tation is considered from a modular viewpoint, some of the differences that have
plagued the analogy between natural and artificial evolution disappear. Along
similarlines,chapter“TheRoleofAffordanceLandscapesinExaptiveInnovations
” explores different hypothesis with respect to the common idea of considering
exaptationasthecoreingredientofdecision-makingaboutinnovation.Theauthors
discuss the concept of affordance landscape, emphasizing the ability of living
Preface:WhyReadThisBook vii
beings to prefigure landscapes to reach specific goals. This notion is, according to
the authors, useful to shed light on the ability of living beings to reconceive the
existing affordances to discover new uses for artefacts.
Thefollowingchaptersdealwitheconomics.Inchapter“MappingExaptationas
SourceofSmartSpecializationinEuropeanRegionalPolicyBetweenTacitnessand
Codification”,exaptationisshowntobeasourceofsmartspecializationwithinthe
European Regional Policy while in chapter “The Technology Second Chance:
Leveraging Creativity by Convergence of Serendipity and Exaptation Processes”,
Leporini et al. start from some famous cases in technology showing how
serendipity and exaptation are strictly interconnected. In particular, the authors
highlight the importance of “convergence” in research and applied policy, con-
sidering two critical aspects: hybridization of knowledge and continuous contam-
ination of extended specialization.
In chapter “Innovation-Oriented Programming: Software Development as a
Medium for Exaptation and Implications for the Active Facilitation of Innovation
Within Virtual Environments”, David King explores the intriguing question of the
roleofexaptationincomputersoftwarediscussinghowinnovationsinthatdomain
proceedsthroughtherepurposingofdata,algorithmsandvisualizationstoproblems
other than the ones they were originally developed to solve. The departure from
traditional programming paradigms and the implementation of development sys-
tems specifically oriented towards innovation appears to be very promising in this
context. Preliminary experiments reported by King show that when explicit
innovation-oriented programming systems and practices are leveraged, innovation
can rapidly occur.
In chapter “Dancing with the Urban Exaptation”, Longhi discusses how archi-
tecture results from a complex relationship between scientific, artistic, economic
and political experiences. The author explains in this chapter this exaptive world
using the metaphor of the dance to produce new multiple design alphabets from
environmental, architectural, economic, social and technological contexts. Finally,
inchapter“ExaptativeThinkingasWhatMakesUsHuman”,theauthorsdevelopa
theory of two kinds of self-organization and self-reproducing structures in living
organisms and complex mind. They discuss how biology and psychological expi-
ration events might play a critical role in these processes.
The book was conceived as an exhaustive monograph to the emerging inter-
disciplinaryfieldoftheexaptation.Itstargetedreadershipiscomposedofgraduate
studentsinphysics,biology,mathematics,economics,psychologyandarchitecture.
The book should also appeal to established researchers in humanities who wish to
engage in a new science-driven interdisciplinary field. Most importantly, however,
itisourhopethatthisbookmightbeaninspirationforfurtherinnovationandideas.
Milan, Italy Caterina AM La Porta
Stefano Zapperi
Luciano Pilotti
Contents
The Evolution of Exaptation, and How Exaptation Survived
Dennett’s Criticism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Telmo Pievani and Filippo Sanguettoli
Nature-Inspired Optimization Methods: How Ants, Bees, Cuckoos,
and Other Friends May Improve the Work of Mathematicians . . . . . . . 25
Alessandra Micheletti
Exaptation in Physics and Materials Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Michael Zaiser and Stefano Zapperi
Exaptation for the Good and the Bad: Regeneration and Cancer . . . . . 47
Caterina AM La Porta
Quantifying Exaptation in Scientific Evolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
M. R. Ferreira, N. Reisz, W. Schueller, V. D. P. Servedio, S. Thurner,
and V. Loreto
Exaptation and Beyond: Multilevel Function Evolution in Biology
and Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
PierpaoloAndriani,ChristineBrun,GiuseppeCarignani,andGinoCattani
The Role of Affordance Landscapes in Exaptive Innovations. . . . . . . . . 85
Antonio Mastrogiorgio and Mariano Mastrogiorgio
Mapping Exaptation as Source of Smart Specialization in European
Regional Policy Between Tacitness and Codification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Ivan De Noni, Andrea Ganzaroli, and Luciano Pilotti
The Technology Second Chance: Leveraging Creativity
by Convergence of Serendipity and Exaptation Processes . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Barbara Leporini, Marina Buzzi, and Luciano Pilotti
ix
x Contents
Innovation-Oriented Programming: Software Development
as a Medium for Exaptation and Implications for the Active
Facilitation of Innovation Within Virtual Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
David King
Dancing with the Urban Exaptation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Giuseppe Davide Longhi
Exaptative Thinking as What Makes Us Human . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Liane Gabora and Kirthana Ganesh
Index .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 193
