That is why people try to grow complexity nowadays, instead of designing it. It turns out evolution is pretty efficient at this process despite its seeming inefficiency of exploring a possibility space.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/slime-mold-grows-network-just-like-tokyo-rail-system/
Sorry to go off-topic (
), but this reminds me of potato chips that look like Abraham Lincoln...The potato chip that looks like Lincoln was an accident of nature. The slime mold is intentional. They placed food at the relative locations of the cities surrounding Tokyo, and allowed the slime mold to determine the most efficient and resilient paths between them.
Sooo... Slime mold says we're right, so we should pat ourselves on the back? Did we already know that slime mold always takes the most efficient routes to food?