Do Living Systems Have Inherent Properties of Self-Improvement?

Here's a writer responding to Chris Anderson who apparently doubts the necessarily self-improving properties of living systems. Nicholas Carr is not sure that systems like Wikipedia necessarily contain a vector of improvement: "I confess: I'm an unbeliever. My mammalian mind remains mired in the earthly muck of doubt. It's not that I think Chris is wrong about the workings of 'probabilistic systems.' I'm sure he's right. Where I have a problem is in his implicit trust that the optimization of the system, the achievement of the mathematical perfection of the macroscale, is something to be desired. To people, 'optimization' is a neutral term. The optimization of a complex mathematical, or economic, system may make things better for us, or it may make things worse. It may improve society, or degrade it. We may not be able to apprehend the ends, but that doesn't mean the ends are going to be good."