When I look at what has been "designed", I see a lot of cleverness, but I also see a lot of randomness. I don't see much in the way of purposeful designs.
We tend to speak as if it were so. We say, "The Cheetah is designed to run fast."
Boy! Is it! The stride length of the cheetah equals that of a racehorse, and it gets that by stretching its spine. It runs by a series of incredibly fast leaps.
But that design has a price. The cheetah often loses its kill because it is too exhausted to defend it.
The primary designer of the cheetah is the antelope, by its habit of running very fast. If antelopes were slower, cheetahs would be too.
Well said
Design is all about trade offs. Armor v. Speed. Simplicity v. Complexity. Multipurpose v. Single purpose. Top Grade v. economy grade. If your cheetah had no trade offs for its speed, it would overproduce, dominate, and then starve to death. Good design tends to last. Example: The hammer, the paperclip, the shovel, the wheel, the AK-47. All of which is relatively new compared to the cheetah. Therefore, cheetah = good design.