关于进化的起源，我们并没有任何确定的知识。但我们相当清楚地了解一种新物种出现的动力学过程——从它的诞生，到发展的高峰，再到衰退。进化路径几乎与物种数量一样多，但它们之间又有着大量共同特征。 一种新物种的出现，往往悄无声息。它似乎是从既有事物中生长出来的，这种“借用”仿佛证明了设计者在创造上的惰性。 在最初阶段，几乎没有迹象表明：一种物种日后赖以发展的、其内部结构上的剧烈变革，其实已经发生。最早的个体通常体型微小，并带有许多原始特征，仿佛它们的诞生仓促而充满不确定性。在相当一段时间内，它们以半隐秘的方式勉强存活，几乎无法与那些已经对世界任务高度适应的既有物种竞争。 但最终，在环境中一些看似微不足道的变化所引发的整体平衡改变的推动下（这里的“环境”不仅包括地质世界，也包括其中生存的所有其他物种），一种新的扩张开始了。当一个物种进入已被占据的领地时，它会在生存竞争中公开展示出对对手的优势；而当它进入一片尚未被征服的空白区域时，它便会爆发出进化辐射，在短时间内催生出一整套变体。 在这些变体中，物种原始残余特征的消失，往往伴随着新的系统性解决方案的出现；这些方案越来越大胆地支配着物种的外在形态与新功能。正是通过这一路径，物种抵达了自身发展的巅峰，并在这一过程中，为整个时代命名。 它在陆地、海洋或天空中的统治时期，往往持续很长时间。随后，稳态平衡再次被打破——但这并不意味着失败。此时，物种的进化动力学会呈现出此前未曾出现的新特征：在其核心谱系中，个体不断变得庞大，仿佛“巨型化”可以作为抵御威胁的手段；新的进化辐射再次出现，但这一次，往往表现为高度专门化。 侧枝谱系试图进入竞争相对较弱的环境；有时，这种尝试会获得成功。最终，当那些巨型个体的所有痕迹都已消失——它们曾是核心物种为避免灭绝而采取的防御策略——当所有相反方向的努力也都失败（某些进化线路迅速走向侏儒化）之后，那些侧枝的后代，由于在竞争边缘区域遇到了有利条件，几乎毫无变化地延续着自身的存在。就这样，它们成为了某一物种原初繁盛与力量的最后见证。 请原谅我略显夸张的文风，这种修辞并未辅以具体实例。这里的模糊之处，源于一个事实：我同时在谈论两种进化——生物进化与技术进化。 ——斯坦尼斯瓦夫·莱姆，《技术总论》（Summa Technologiae） We know nothing certain about the origins of evolution. What we do know rather well is the dynamics of the emergence of a new species—from its birth through its developmental peak to its decline. There are almost as many evolutionary paths as there are species, and they all have numerous characteristics in common. A new species appears in the world unnoticed. Its appearance seems to come from what already exists, and this borrowing seems to testify to the inventive inertia of the Designer. At the beginning, there is not much indication that this upheaval in its inner organization, to which a species will owe its later development, has in fact already taken place. The first specimens are usually small; they also sport a number of primitive features, as if their birth had been hurried and fraught with uncertainty. For a period of time, they vegetate in a semisecretive state, barely managing to compete with the established species—which are already optimally adapted to the tasks of the world. Then, eventually, prompted by the change to the general equilibrium resulting from the seemingly insignificant transformations in the environment (whereby a species's environment includes not only the geological world but also all the other species vegetating in it), a new kind of expansion takes off. Entering the already occupied territories, a species openly shows its lead over its competitors in the struggle for life. When it enters an empty unconquered space, it bursts into evolutionary radiation, which in one go initiates the emergence of a whole range of variations. In these variations, the disappearance of the remnants of primitivism in a species is accompanied by the emergence of new systemic solutions that are ever more bravely dominating its outer appearance and its new functions. This is the route a species takes to reach its developmental peak. Through the process, it gives a name to the whole epoch. The period of rule on land, in the sea, or in the air lasts a long time. Then a homeostatic equilibrium is eventually disturbed once again—yet this still does not signal defeat. The evolutionary dynamics of a species gains some hitherto unobserved new traits. In its core branch, the specimens are getting bigger, as if gigantism was to provide protection against the threat. Evolutionary radiations start to take place again, this time often marked by hyperspecialization. The lateral branches attempt to penetrate into environments in which competition is comparatively weaker. From time to time, that latter maneuver culminates in success. Then, when all the traces of the giants—whose emergence was a defense strategy on the part of the core species against its extinction—have disappeared, when all the simultaneous efforts to the contrary have also failed (as some evolutionary lines promptly head towards dwarfism), the descendants of the lateral branch, having happily encountered propitious conditions inside the peripheral area of their competition, continue their existence almost without change. In this way, they serve as the last proof of the primeval abundance and power of a species. Please forgive my somewhat pompous style, a rhetoric that has not been supported by any examples. Any vagueness here stems from the fact that I have been talking about two kinds of evolution at the same time: biological and technical. -Stanislaw Lem, Summa Technologiae