[ExI] Purified humanity Re: Your Genome Is a Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland

[BillK]

On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 9:06 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> Mutation is not selection (though not entirely blind, once the
> system has evolved evolvability), all the selection is done by
> the fitness function -- which is not static, but certainly selective.
>
> Those who don't understand evolutionary optimization are doomed
> to reinvent it, poorly.
>

You may be mixing evolutionary computing techniques to solve specific
problems with evolutionary changes.

Evolutionary computing starts afresh with every new problem. Evolution doesn't.

For example, way back, some creature in the sea found that four fins
were quite useful at that time. After that, evolution, building on the
past, was stuck with four limbs for ever after. Even when four limbs
is no longer the best solution.

BillK