"The key insight gained by the last three decades of research on complex adaptive systems offers a contrary view: that the variation presented to natural selection is not always random. Experiments show that 'random' mutations are often not unbiased; instead, variation is governed by geometry and physics; and most important, variations are often shaped by the possibilities inherent in the recurring patterns of self-organization (a la whirlpool vortex). [...] This flips the traditional view. In the old view, the internal (the source of mutation) created change, while the external (the environmental source of adaptation) selected or directed it; in the new view, the external (physical and chemical constraints) creates forms, while the internal (self-organizataion) selects or directs them." (Kelly 2010, What Technology Wants, p. 120)
