Showing papers on "Evolutionary programming published in 1987"
TL;DR: If the evolution of computational software follows a distinctively Darwinian pattern, some confirmation may be derivable for the otherwise rather ill-supported thesis, favoured by Popper [1972], that the progress of human knowledge is accomplished by a process of Darwinian evolution in the world of ideas.
Abstract: The invention and improvement of computational software is a process that has come to play an increasingly important part in the ferment of contemporary culture. It is now a conspicuous factor in the progress of industry, commerce, science and scholarship. Accordingly, if it exhibits any pervasive patterns or regularities, we should do well to recognise them. Not only may our economic decisions and planning strategy profit therefrom. But also, to the extent that the explanatory theories of contemporary psychology exploit analogies with computational processing, any pervasive features of software development for implementation in artefacts may be indicative of analogous features in human intellectual history. So, to the insight afforded by computational models in the synchronic study of the contemporary human mind, it may be possible to add a further insight— an insight into the diachronic dynamics of intellectual progress. More specifically, if the evolution of computational software follows a distinctively Darwinian pattern, as has been alleged in various ways by Simon [1970], Weinberg [1985], and Lehman and Belady [1985], some confirmation may be derivable for the otherwise rather ill-supported thesis, favoured by Popper [1972] among others, that the progress of human knowledge is accomplished by a process of Darwinian evolution in the world of ideas. On the contrary, however, it turns out that the kinds of argument in Cohen [1985] which suffice to destroy Popper's thesis are also effective against the Darwinian account of software development.