Related papers: An evolutionary process without variation and sele…
The natural evolution of life seems to proceed through steps characterized by phases of relatively rapid changes, followed by longer, more stable periods. In the light of the string-theory derived physical scenario proposed in [1], we…
We examine the evolution of expression patterns and the organization of genetic information in populations of self-replicating digital organisms. Seeding the experiments with a linearly expressed ancestor, we witness the development of…
An important feature of many complex systems, both natural and artificial, is the structure and organization of their interaction networks with interesting properties. Here we present a theory of self-organization by evolutionary adaptation…
A cardinal feature common to embryonic development and tissue reorganization, as well as to wound healing and cancer cell invasion, is collective cellular migration. During collective migratory events the phenomena of cell jamming and…
Neural codes appear efficient. Naturally, neuroscientists contend that an efficient process is responsible for generating efficient codes. They argue that natural selection is the efficient process that generates those codes. Although…
Background: Speciation corresponds to the progressive establishment of reproductive barriers between groups of individuals derived from an ancestral stock. Since Darwin did not believe that reproductive barriers could be selected for, he…
We present a model of the evolution of control systems in a genome under environmental constraints. The model conceptually follows the Jacob and Monod model of gene control. Genes contain control elements which respond to the internal state…
In this work, a neural network is trained to replicate the code that trains it using only its own output as input. A paradigm for evolutionary self-replication in neural programs is introduced, where program parameters are mutated, and the…
This paper reviews and clarifies five misunderstandings about cultural evolution identified by Henrich, Boyd, and Richerson (2008). First, cultural representations are neither discrete nor continuous; they are distributed across neurons…
Using a series of computer simulations we have demonstrated a scenario of the early evolution of the bird-type primitive language. We do not assume wise agents who can use a grammar and manage an evolution without a grammar. Duplication and…
Microbial populations adapt to their environment by acquiring advantageous mutations, but in the early twentieth century, questions about how these organisms acquire mutations arose. The experiment of Salvador Luria and Max Delbr\"uck that…
Evolutionary success depends on the capacity to adapt: organisms must respond to environmental challenges through both genetic innovation and lifetime learning. The gene-centric paradigm attributes evolutionary causality exclusively to…
The problem of the rate and mechanisms of biological evolution was considered. It was shown that species could not be formed due to undirected mutations in characteristic times of about one million years. A mechanism of deterministic…
Many organisms live in populations structured by space and by class, exhibit plastic responses to their social partners, and are subject to non-additive ecological and fitness effects. Social evolution theory has long recognized that all of…
Horizontal gene transfer consists in exchanging genetic materials between microorganisms during their lives. This is a major mechanism of bacterial evolution and is believed to be of main importance in antibiotics resistance. We consider a…
Textual analysis of typical microbial genomes reveals that they have the statistical characteristics of a DNA sequence of a much shorter length. This peculiar property supports an evolutionary model in which a genome evolves by random…
At any moment in time, evolution is faced with a formidable challenge: refining the already highly optimised design of biological species, a feat accomplished through all preceding generations. In such a scenario, the impact of random…
We represent a process of learning by using bit strings, where 1-bits represent the knowledge acquired by individuals. Two ways of learning are considered: individual learning by trial-and-error; and social learning by copying knowledge…
In collective robotic systems, the automatic generation of controllers for complex tasks is still a challenging problem. Open-ended evolution of complex robot behaviors can be a possible solution whereby an intrinsic driver for pattern…
Stronger selection implies faster evolution---that is, the greater the force, the faster the change. This apparently self-evident proposition, however, is derived under the assumption that genetic variation within a population is primarily…