Today you get a snippet of the unnamed fiction WIP.
Here’s the problem: evolution doesn’t do what works. Evolution does random things. Some random things survive. Most do not. Entirely different branches of life tried making solar panels to absorb energy, and survived. Leaves “work.” Neighboring branches tried absorbing energy from stone, or wind, or indie rock, and died.
Raising the solar panels a little higher meant the creature survived better than those around it. Stalks “work.”
Raise enough of those solar panels, and you need a thick stalk. Call it a trunk. Boom. Evolution has yet again produced trees, or eyes, or caffeine. When humans reach civilized space they’ll discover flying crabs with teeth, because those things all “work.”
Study their ancestry and you’ll discover that oaks are strawberries. Mesquite is a pea. They diverged at the invention of the seed, and those branches of the family haven’t talked since. Two wholly separate things survived because they randomly wound up in similar shapes.
Is this a novel or a rant? I fear that’s not an “or” question.