The evolution of evolvability

Abstract

This chapter illustrates the use of artificial life, not as a formal model of real life but as a generator of insight in the understanding of real life. Genetics is the study of the relationships between genotypes in successive generations. Embryology is the study of the relationship between genotype and phenotype in any one generation. The fundamental principle of embryology in real life was formulated by Weismann. In every generation, the genes of that generation influence the phenotype of that generation. The success of that phenotype determines whether or not the genes that it bears, a set that largely overlaps with the genes that influenced its development, shall go forward to the next generation. The chapter explores the far-reaching consequences of the fact that these sets do not necessarily have to overlap. Any individual born, therefore, inherits genes that have succeeded in building a long series of successful phenotypes, for the simple reason that failed phenotypes do not pass on their genes. It is important to understand that genes do two quite distinct things. They participate in embryology, influencing the development of the phenotype in a given generation; and they participate in genetics, getting themselves copied down the generations. It is too often not realized–even by some of those that wear the labels geneticist or embryologist–that there is a radical separation between the disciplines of genetics and embryology.