October 17, 2012 By adminCDS

The World Wide Web as Natural Selection

I’ve been contemplating for some time now how the World Wide Web is can be seen as a microcosm of the principles of Natural Selection. After all it has many of the same elements and influences that play a part in the evolution of the world around us:

The Internet can be seen to represent the planet on which all elements of the World Wide Web have to ‘live’.

HTML is like the core DNA; the code from which all other elements are built from, well, in some case on top of or next to. But without HTML the whole thing stops working. Languages like Javascript are comparative to evolutionary jumps such as feathers or eyes that enable a species (programs in our analogy) to leap frog over others and adapt and survive in new ways. While an entire platform or program may not evolve fast enough and fall away into insignificance, or even extinction, others may take a portion of the DNA (HTML) and use it to create a new more successful program that becomes and enormous evolutionary success.

Browsers are like different continents, which adhere to the same basic rules but have differing environments or conditions that the programs have to adapt to in order to function or survive.

Apps and Walled Gardens are like the big oil companies blocking or artificially altering the environment to protect their own gains, whilst hindering the natural advancement of other species.

Viruses speak for themselves….

So if there is a creator… then it must be Sir Tim Berners-Lee!