You can still design for evolution and follow best practices. That's actually IMO a hallmark of good software design.

The issue is when the evolution is random and rife with special cases and rules that cannot be generalized... the unknown unknowns of reality, as you say.

Then, you just gotta patch with if elses.

> The issue is when the evolution is random and rife with special cases and rules that cannot be generalized

You’ve just described the universe. It’s full of randomness.