IANA biologist, but nothing in the theory of natural selection precludes "intelligent" selection, as far as I know. There simply needs to be some sort of fitness function. Intelligence, in some form or another, factors into this all the time. In this case, fitness is determined by whether a bunch of people like it or not. That's really no different than a plant appearing attractive to a bee, or a beetle tasting nasty to a lizard.

JJ

I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one here who first thought of 80's FM synthesizers when reading the subject line of this thread.

JJ

Actually, there are tons of good examples where pairs resulted in fantastic creative endeavors. Go see a Rogers and Hammerstein musical, or a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Or watch "The Matrix" or "The Big Lebowski" while sitting in an Eames lounge chair.

Programming is an art, sure. But no more or less than any other engineering discipline. Go tell the Wright brothers or Hewlett and Packard that working in pairs is "just plain stupid".

There are valid arguments against Pair Programming. However, the old "creativity is a one-man show" idea isn't one of them.

JJ

Four months? Bah. I went for about 20 years without internet access, and I survived just fine.

JJ

The Design of Everyday Things

And yes, it is a tech/eng/cs book as far as I'm concerned.

JJ