Creativity in nature requires a huge variety of diverse possibilities and an incredible genotype network to support an almost infinite range of options.

All life is made up of cells and there are many many different types. Cells work in isolation, such as bacteria or in multi-cellular organisms such as complex life. Metabolic reactions in these cells are vital to the life of the organism. These ‘phenotypes’ produce an enormous range of innovations in life such as creating pigment colours and camouflage, healing damaged skin, protecting us from radiation and helping us see, to name a few.

These biological innovations are constant and ongoing, organisms are always innovating using the many millions of viable possibilities at their disposal. Each metabolic innovation depends on two factors;

1. The genotype network, a vast library of metabolic reactions where single variations in genes can select from 5,000 possible dimensions and then journey across billions of potential steps to find successful solutions to life’s problems. Life has to watch out though; one misstep results in death – evolutionary dead ends.

2. The second factor in life’s metabolic creativity is that it is arranged in such diverse neighbourhoods. There are no mono cultures in nature, even in bland, featureless terrain. Even similar organisms living side by side can differ hugely in chemical structure.

So life’s innovations revolve around new molecules and the reactions that create them. But life doesn’t stand still, it is always experimenting with every conceivable combination of new genes, but these changes are made at the micro scale not the macro.

Large, multi-cellular organisms reproduce slowly by comparison to bacteria and so evolution is slower in these. And change doesn’t eliminate what has gone before, rather it builds on what is present, making code redundant rather than deleting it. So the humble cell has grown and evolved; from primitive oxygen breathing bacteria to complex eukaryotic cells that power human beings.

What’s more, organisms self-regulate and replicate themselves upon reproduction, so if there isn’t a need to adapt to a new environment or new circumstances, then it won’t happen. That’s why creatures essentially look the same over long periods of time; what works is kept, what fails dies.

From Arrival of the Fittest by Andreas Wagner