Word: sketchpad
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Kauffman of the Santa Fe Institute argues that underlying the creative commotion during the Cambrian are laws that we have only dimly glimpsed - laws that govern not just biological evolution but also the evolution of physical, chemical and technological systems. The fanciful animals that first appeared on nature's sketchpad remind Kauffman of early bicycles, with their odd-size wheels and strangely angled handlebars. "Soon after a major innovation," he writes, "discovery of profoundly different variations is easy. Later innovation is limited to modest improvements on increasingly optimized designs...