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From: bpvanstr@yoho.uwaterloo.ca (Brian Van Straalen)
Subject: Re: Lamarckian Evolution
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Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 21:43:58 GMT
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In article <D1ty93.9xJ@lincoln.gpsemi.com>,
David Whipp <whipp@roborough.gpsemi.com> wrote:
>The Lamarckian view of evolution is that the experience of an
>individual may be passed to the next generation when it reproduces
>(i.e. in the genes).  Although largely discredited in wet-life
>evolution, there is no reason why it can't be attempted in a-life.
>

Well.....  I had a rousing debate on here about 5 months ago on this
issue in a limited sense.  I proposed a Lamrkian version of an alifeform
because of a very practical problem that current alife faces:

	Say you want an alife form as complicated as, say, an amoeba, 
evolving within a computer evironment. To make mutation and selection
work, you want a decent population space based on the size of the
genome.  Even with our best supercomputers , or even A-Life computers,
you would be lucky to see one generation live and procreate, much
less the fifty generations needed for a darwinian mechanism to operate.

You see, wet-life procreates and functions at super-parallel-nano-computer
speed. We won't be seeing that kind of computing power in my life-time 
(I don't care what Drexler thinks)

Lamarkian mechanisms could be the needed computational shortcut we need
to make truly complicated (large genomed) alifeforms possible.

  (unfortunately, using this as a biology tool wouldn't be a good idea,
  since nature seems quite content to wait for darwinian processes)


Brian Van Straalen
