Newsgroups: comp.ai.alife
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From: simonb@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (No way! Way!)
Subject: Re: a theoretical biology for alife...
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Date: Thu, 30 Mar 1995 01:32:49 GMT
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brown@altair.krl.caltech.edu (C. Titus Brown) writes:

>In other words, I consider the main focus of theoretical biology to be on
>a top-down description, while I think the main focus of Artificial Life to
>be on a bottom-up implementation.

>Cheers,
>--
Titus

We biologists are starting to get into the bottom-up approach, too. Part of
the problem with traditional models in biology is that due to the mathematical
formalism, we end up leaving out aspects of the biology which we know
(or suspect) to be of importance. This is because we a. don't really
understand how to incorporate some phenomena meaningfully into equations
(e.g. contingent history) or b. The phenomena are so obviously non-linear
that the equations quickly become unsolveable. Some biologists are beginning
to embrace individual-based models, where the attributes of individual
organisms are modelled, and population- and community- level behaviour
"emerge" as a result of the interactions among individuals (NB Make the
attributes of individuals at least partially genetically based, and you
 have an alife model). So bottom-up approaches are slowly being incorporated
into the toolbox of theoretical biologists. The main obstacles seem to be
a. getting access to powerful computers, and b. acquiring the necessary
programming skills.

A book that may interest the folks here is:

Individual-based models and approaches in ecology. Populations, communities,
and ecosystems. D. L. DeAngelis and L. J. Gross (Eds.) 1992. Chapman and
Hall. 525 pp.

Cheers,

Simon.
(madly trying to learn C++ so he can build his own models).



-- 
Simon Blomberg                                   simonb@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU
School of Biol. Sciences, A08
University of Sydney                               Just another road kill
NSW   2006  Australia                        on the information superhighway.
