@patchuun this is his sort of response to that question, but he seems to be confusing a higher order system (natural selection) with its corresponding lower order systems (the compositions of individual organisms), ironic because he decries this kind of error earlier in the same sequence of essays. but maybe that's the wrong interpretation and he's really implying that the behavior of all organisms is reducible to optimization processes, which... i'm not inclined to dismiss out of hand, but i don't accept it out of hand either. it begs the question of whether optimization implies intent. and what intent is to begin with