Evolution and such review

From: Kevin Wampler (wampler@cs.washington.edu)
Date: Tue Nov 30 2004 - 23:24:59 PST

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    In "The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Features" the authors present a
    computer simulation of evolution which suggests that complex traits can
    evolve from the mutation of simpler traits. The specific simulation
    presented is the out of NAND functions. With this objective function
    alone, the evolutionary algorithm had little success, but when simpler,
    but related functions are reinforced the EQU function evolved relatively
    frequently. It was also found that locally disadvantageous mutations were
    sometimes made which helped to achieve a better maximum later in the
    evolution. This suggests that complex features could evolve from
    mutations on simpler features in biological organisms as well -- a
    significant point in the theory of evolution.

    Although these results are suggestive of a similar biological mechanism,
    the conclusion is still not particularly solid. In comparison to the
    complexity of many biological features, the EQU function is very simple.
    Although nature, of course, has an immensely greater computational power
    relative to a computer, some results suggesting that evolutionary
    algorithms scale effectively to more complex solutions with an increase in
    computing time would be useful. Providing that a distinct correlation can
    be shown between the complexity of evolved features and iterations of the
    evolution algorithm, the validity of the approach could be tested by
    checking if the complexity of biological features matches what is expected
    from a 4 billion year computation with resources like those in nature.
    This would be a rather useful result, as it would either indicate that the
    computer simulation does not well reflect reality, or show that insofar as
    it resembles the crucial features of the simulation, it is reasonable for
    biological evolution to produce many of the `irreducibly complex'
    features in organisms today.


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