The seminal biological paper (Edelman & Gally) on functional redundancy. Now the point is that biologists miss the convexity (optionality) argument. Every branch knows a version of optionality, but without going to the end.
http://www.pnas.org/content/98/24/13763.full.pdf+html
Degeneracy and complexity in biological systems — PNAS
www.pnas.org