I've been looking for help in designing a software model of evolution that
might be useful for testing some of the ideas in evolutionary theory, and for
teaching the principles of evolution to students in grades 8 through 12.
I thought a genetic algorithm all by itself was a pretty good model, but got
pretty unanimous contrary opinions from folks in the biology field. I don't
think the objection is that software *can't* model evolution, but that so far
it hasn't.
So, I'd like to hear opinions on the *essential* features a software model
will need to have, in order to give experts in the field some confidence that
its behavior will be usefully similar to natural evolution. [and please don't
say it has to accurately model biochemistry! This needs to be a *simplified*
model that retains the important features of the system it is modeling.]
==================================================================
| Steve McGrew, President | stevem at comtch.iea.com |
| New Light Industries, Ltd. | Phone: (509) 456-8321 |
| 9713 W. Sunset Hwy | Fax: (509) 456-8351 |
| Spokane, WA 99204 USA | http://www.iea.com/~nli |
==================================================================
