Comparing Mechanisms for Evolving Evolvability
Matthew Glickman, Katia P. Sycara · 1999
In evolutionary search, the term evolvability as de ned in [Altenberg 94] refers to \\the ability of a population to produce variants tter than any yet existing". In this paper, we examine a few existing mechanisms which provide the potential for the evolvabilityofa population to itself evolve. One key property that we identify among such mechanisms is a many-to-one genotype-to-phenotype mapping, which permits variations in evolvability to occur independent of tness. Another is the propensity for individuals to become increasingly conservative in parent-o spring transmission as they become more t, a phenomenon which becomes stronger as selection pressure becomes weaker. 1