I do wish the author had gone with 'complex' and 'simple' instead of 'fractal' and 'linear'. I don't see anything particularly 'linear' about a chair, for example.
Regarding the 'top-down' vs 'bottom-up' dichotomy - I don't really see why one is better than the other. I agree that humans tend to begin with a concrete idea and iterate on their designs from there (a 'top-down' approach). The article seems to be driving at the notion that nature's emergent, bottom-up approach is somehow better. But beyond the observation that the amazon rainforest is more diverse than a monocultural man-made forest, I don't think they really substantiate why that is so.
Yes, I used the words in the title somewhat liberally.
I don’t think there’s anything universally good or bad about top-down planning. It boils down to context. Recognition of contexts where top down planning might fail is a desirable thing.
nature didn’t evolve a wheel (at least it didn’t stick around, there were probably plenty of attempts) because environments aren’t uniform enough to use it as a primary mode of movement (which facilitates finding food, escaping danger, finding mates, etc).
Regarding the 'top-down' vs 'bottom-up' dichotomy - I don't really see why one is better than the other. I agree that humans tend to begin with a concrete idea and iterate on their designs from there (a 'top-down' approach). The article seems to be driving at the notion that nature's emergent, bottom-up approach is somehow better. But beyond the observation that the amazon rainforest is more diverse than a monocultural man-made forest, I don't think they really substantiate why that is so.