Some of the sorting algorithms, as somebody learning them, it's almost entirely opaque how somebody could come up with those.

It seems like they must have sprung forth wholecloth to the inventor in the shower...it's almost impossible to have iteratively developed some of them because even small changes in the algorithms produce terrible results. I remember thinking over and over again, "how the hell could somebody come up with this?"

Searching in comparison looks very engineered, very studied, something that most people could come up with given need, motivation and time.