The Darwinian mechanism of vary-and-select, vary-and-select has one enormous difference from the process of design. It operates by hindsight rather than foresight. Evolution is always away from known problems rather than toward imagined goals. It doesn’t seek to maximize theoretical fitness; it minimizes experienced unfitness. Hindsight is better than foresight. That’s why evolutionary forms such as vernacular building types always work better than visionary designs such as geodesic domes. They grow from experience rather than from somebody’s forehead.
