In contrast to the engineer, evolution does not produce innovations from scratch. It works on what already exists, either transforming a system to give it a new function or combining several systems to produce a more complex one. If one wanted to use a comparison, however, one would have to say that this process resembles not engineering but tinkering, bricolage we say in French. While the engineer’s work relies on his having the raw materials and the tools that exactly fit his project, the tinkerer manages with odds and ends…. He uses whatever he finds around him, old cardboards, pieces of
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