Modularity in Evolution: Some Low-Level Questions

Created by W.Langdon from gp-bibliography.bib Revision:1.7615

@InCollection{Altenberg:2004:MESLLQ,

• title = "Modularity in Evolution: Some Low-Level Questions",
• author = "Lee Altenberg",
• booktitle = "Modularity: Understanding the Development and Evolution of Complex Natural Systems",
• editor = "Diego Rasskin-Gutman and Werner Callebaut",
• publisher = "MIT Press",
• address = "Cambridge, MA, USA",
• year = "2005",
• chapter = "5",
• pages = "99--128",
• month = jun,
• keywords = "genetic algorithms, genetic programming",
• ISBN = "0-262-03326-7",
• URL = "http://dynamics.org/Altenberg/FILES/LeeMESLLQ.pdf",
• abstract = "Intuitive notions about the advantages of modularity for evolvability run into the problem of how we parse the organism into traits. In order to resolve the question of multiplicity, there needs to be a way to get the human observer out of the way, and define modularity in terms of physical processes. I will offer two candidate ideas towards this resolution:

  the dimensionality of phenotypic variation, and

  the causal screening off of phenotypic variables by other phenotypic variables.

  With this framework, the evolutionary advantages that have been attributed to modularity do not derive from modularity per se. Rather, they require that there be an 'alignment' between the spaces of phenotypic variation, and the selection gradients that are available to the organism. Modularity may facilitate such alignment, but it is not sufficient; the appropriate phenotype-fitness map in conjunction with the genotype-phenotype map is also necessary for evolvability.

  Conclusion

  I have endeavoured in this essay to delve into some of the low-level conceptual issues associated with the idea of modularity in the genotype-phenotype map. My main proposal is that the evolutionary advantages that have been attributed to modularity do not derive from modularity per se. Rather, they require that there be an 'alignment' between the spaces of phenotypic variation, and the selection gradients that are available to the organism. Modularity in the genotype-phenotype map may make such an alignment more readily attained, but it is not sufficient; the appropriate phenotype-fitness map in conjunction with the genotype-phenotype map is also necessary for evolvability.",

• notes = "Quantitative mutational effects under the 'House of Cards' vs. ``random-walk'' assumptions.

  http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10484&mode=toc",

• size = "32 pages",

}

Genetic Programming entries for Lee Altenberg

Citations