learning & evolution

"If you step back and, for example, look at the mathematical approach
to learning theory, people understand very well that there's a
learning strategy, a search process, and there's a space that is being
searched. Only the two together give you a mathematical description of
learning. I would say the same is true for evolution. Evolution is
the search strategy, but the space that is being searched is generated
by the laws of physics and chemistry in a way that nobody actually
understands. You could say that to really understand the structure of
life around you, a much deeper description would actually be required,
and would describe not the algorithm for search, but what is being
searched. So, in that sense, our current understanding of evolution,
I think, is actually very incomplete." --
http://edge.org/conversation/evolution-of-cooperation-nowak