But you have selected an algorithm with a "good" flying trait already for making airplanes. Just with another avenue to get to it versus pure random generation. The evolution of the bird has came up with another algorithm for example, where they use flapping wings instead of thrust from engines. Even among airplane development, a lot was learned by studying birds, which are the result of a random walk algorithm.
No there is no selection and no traits to pick, it's the culmination of research and human engineering. An airplan is a complex system that needs serious engineering. You can study birs but up till a certain point, if you like it go doing bird watching, but it's everything except engineering
First of all natural selection doesn't happen per se, nor is controlled by some inherent mechanism, it's the by product of many factors external and internal. So the comparison is just wrong. Human engineering is an interative process not a selection. And if we want to call it selection, even though it is a stretch, we're controlling it, we the master of puppets, natural selection is anything but a controlled process. We don't select a more resistant wing, we engineer the wing with a high bending tolerance, again it's an iterative process
We do select for a more resistant wing. How did we determine that this wing is more resistant? We modeled its bending tolerance and selected this particular design against other designs that had worse evaluated results for bending tolerance.
By that logic, everything humans do is per definition result of natural selection. Everything is a sphere if you zoom out far enough.
However your starting definition was more limited. it was specifically about "creating candidates at random, then just picking the one that performs best" - and that's definitely not how airplanes are designed.
