The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Features

A Nature study of the evolutionary origin of complex features in Avida, a world of self-copying programs. Both papers list it with artificial life's digital organisms, a neighbor of swarm ecology. The companion adds its finding that the most complex function sometimes evolved through mutations that were harmful when they arose, steps a designer screening variants would reject, a cost of sighted variation.

Cited in

both papers (Flagship: Introduction; Companion §1, §6.5)

Used for

P4Neighboring fields; P4 (costs and limits, §6.5)

Strand

Artificial life & machine evolution · Artificial life & digital organisms

Cite

@article{lenski2003evolutionary,
  title = {The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Features},
  author = {Richard E. Lenski and Charles Ofria and Robert T. Pennock and Christoph Adami},
  year = {2003},
  journal = {Nature},
  doi = {10.1038/nature01568},
}