Search, or at least its results, is what selection works on. You could even think of evolution as a dual process with mutations as searches of possible genetic combinations followed by selection for survival and reproduction.

I strongly recommend Jonathan Baron's "Thinking and Deciding"; he conceptualizes all thinking, decision making, creativity as the dual process of searching and selection. It's a very interesting book. (I'm reading an older edition and am not yet finished, so I don't know how well he makes the case in total, or how he may have modified his ideas for later editions. But what I have read so far is fascinating.)