Sextus Empiricus retold the story of Apelles the Painter, who, while doing a portrait of a horse, was attempting to depict the foam from the horse’s mouth. After trying very hard and making a mess, he gave up and, in irritation, took the sponge he used for cleaning his brush and threw it at the picture. Where the sponge hit, it left a perfect representation of the foam. Trial and error means trying a lot. In The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins brilliantly illustrates this notion of the world without grand design, moving by small incremental random changes. Note a slight disagreement on my
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