This seems like an interesting way of comparing the results of different types of design solutions.
One important thing to consider is that evolution was under a lot of additional constraints compared to engineers when ‘designing’ organisms. For instance, reactions occur at room temperature and with organic chemistry, many organisms are self-replicating and self-assembling, energy and materials are usually limited to what an organism can collect itself. And rather than optimising for any specific parameter, evolution is just aiming for an organism to survive and reproduce—so few solutions will be optimal in terms of performance/efficiency unless there was a strong evolutionary pressure for them to be so.
My experience with bio-inspired design is that it is usually best to look to biology for high-efficiency solutions as resource scarcity is a constant in most environments. High-performance biology is seen in microscopic structures, which probably still out-perform engineered solutions in many areas.
This seems like an interesting way of comparing the results of different types of design solutions.
One important thing to consider is that evolution was under a lot of additional constraints compared to engineers when ‘designing’ organisms. For instance, reactions occur at room temperature and with organic chemistry, many organisms are self-replicating and self-assembling, energy and materials are usually limited to what an organism can collect itself. And rather than optimising for any specific parameter, evolution is just aiming for an organism to survive and reproduce—so few solutions will be optimal in terms of performance/efficiency unless there was a strong evolutionary pressure for them to be so.
My experience with bio-inspired design is that it is usually best to look to biology for high-efficiency solutions as resource scarcity is a constant in most environments. High-performance biology is seen in microscopic structures, which probably still out-perform engineered solutions in many areas.