Re: We believe in design

Iain Strachan wrote:

>
>
> So ... to return back to my original point - if the space of viable
> phenotypes were densely populated (designed that way as Glenn said in
> his article) so there were caverns of viability connected by viable
> paths, then evolutionary search can work, and indeed the neutrality
> idea would improve the efficiency of that search by spreading out over
> neutral networks. But if this were not the case, then as I see it,
> neutrality doesn't have much effect - it won't change a space that is
> sparsely populated with viable organisms into a viable one - only
> make a densely populated one more rapidly searchable.
>

Neutrality is the essential feature which links 'caverns' of viablity by
viable paths, that's the whole issue. The whole issue of evolvability is
how evolution can evolve a genotype-phenotype mapping. Combine this with
scale free systems which can be explained by duplication and
preferential attachment and you have some very powerful mechanisms to
explain why evolution has been successful.

> However, maybe one day I'll give my S-P-Q algorithm a go if I get time.
>
> Thanks for the link which was very stimulating - hope it hasn't bored
> all the others!
>
> Iain
Received on Mon May 30 19:44:56 2005