(Historical) Analysis-Driven Innovation

An interesting question is the degree to which sustaining and disruptive innovation are based on or driven by analysis of data regarding the system to be improved. Certainly, one must have some idea of the limitations of the current system in order to improve it, thus data collection and analysis seem central to at least sustaining innovation. This is an interesting interpretation of George Santayana's famous dictum: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Put another way: "Those who do not collect and analyze information about the past behavior of a system cannot improve it." But this begs the question of how evolution improves a system apparently without such analysis. Certainly, random mutation, which entails no analysis, can "improve" one member of a species. But is the diffusion of such an improvement dependent on some process akin to historical analysis. Something to ponder.