#evolutionary design

Something has to give. Either we define "design" as the product of an intelligent designer of poems or cars, for instance, or we acknowledge that there can be design--genuine design--without an intelligent designer. Tradition and etymology might seem to favor the former course, but consider this: atom--from the Greek a [without] + tomos, from temnein, to cut or slice. Atom originally meant "unsplittable thing," but science discovered that splitting the atom, after all, was not a contradiction in terms. Science has also discovered, I submit, that design without a designer (lacking a designer with a mind, with foresight and intention) is not only possible but all around us. Design-by-evolution is a real, well understood process. It differs in interesting ways from design-by-engineer, but it is also deeply similar, capable of humbling "ingenuity."

Sacrificial Code Architecture