Digital evolution

1999/10/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Eboluzioa
• Softwarea

To analyze the evolution of the past through fossils, well, but it is very difficult to know where it will evolve in the future, because for this we should better understand the parameters that have influenced evolution. And the speed is also slow. However, at this time computers have created an artificial world within the computer.

The programs represent living beings, developing, multiplying, mutating and adapting to the medium by natural selection following their algorithms. The program, called "Avida", consists of an artificial petri dish at the base. In him there are simple and complex "beings". The former are limited to reproduction and the latter to mathematical calculations. If they succeed they last longer.

Avida randomly incorporates mutations to programs generating natural selection and evolution. In 1997, 250 different genotypes were studied in the bacterium Escherichia coli. This program does the same with more than 1,000 million genotypes.