abstract = "we prove that for a variety of practical situations,
the no-free-lunch (NFL) theorem does not apply to
algorithms that search the space of artificial neural
networks, such as evolutionary algorithms. We find, in
particular, that, while conditions under which NFL
applies exist, these require extremely restrictive
symmetries on the set of possible problems which are
unlikely encountered in practice. not all algorithms
are equally good at finding neural networks that solve
problems under all possible performance measures: a
superior search algorithm for this domain does exist.",
notes = "GECCO-2009 A joint meeting of the eighteenth
international conference on genetic algorithms
(ICGA-2009) and the fourteenth annual genetic
programming conference (GP-2009).