My Evolving Website

Charles Darwin postulated that, because of evolution, an organism would never return to a previous state. The idea was that once a species evolved certain adaptations, such as wings and flight, it would never again return to a previous state of existence, such as losing the wings and returning to a ground-bound life.

I have never thought much of that particular postulation, whether Darwin intended it as a metaphysical principle or merely a statement about the odds against a random mutation perfectly reversing an earlier one. Perhaps Darwin himself did not intend the statement as literally interpreted by many of his disciples. At any rate, the natural world has many examples of species returning to previous states. In a small example, ants are wasps that lost their wings and returned to the ground. On a grander scale, fish grew legs and walked out of the ocean, those animals eventually became mammals, some of which returned to the sea and lost their legs again.

On a personal level, my own life is constantly evolving and adapting to new conditions and developments in the environment. One aspect of my life where the changes are more visible is my website, and by extension this weblog. Here on these pages I am constantly trying new things and looking for improvement. And not only do my own skills and priorities change, but the world and the Internet change around me. Given the constant state of change in the world, any website in a static state is probably more evidence of neglect than of complacency or contentment.

So, this weekend, as you may have guessed by the long introduction, the kaleidoscope is turning again. I made some changes a while ago, it seemed like the right direction at the time, it hasn’t proven as cohesive and flexible as I had hoped, the world has changed around me, and I am making changes again. On the surface, it will probably seem that I have merely returned to an earlier state (WordPress). In truth, however, it will be new, and it will once again be the best website I have ever had. That’s always the reason for the changes.

See you on the other side.