Mark Humphrys - Research - AI Links - Evolution Links

Computational Evolution

Natural Evolution
Human Evolution

Evolution Links

Computational Evolution

My Genetic Algorithms course
Evolutionary computation (and here)
Artificial Life (and here and here)
Genetic Programming
FAQ of comp.ai.genetic
ENCORE repository
Self-replication
Swarm simulation platform
Prediction Company
Stuart Kauffman argues in At Home in the Universe that biology is driven by (a) natural self-organisation of complex systems, (b) natural selection and (c) historical accident.
Evolving 3-D Morphology
Tom Ray
- Tierra
International Society of Artificial Life (ISAL)
Hugo de Garis (and here)
David Goldberg
John Koza
Univ. Sussex, Brighton
- Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems group
The MIT Press, publishers of:
- Artificial Life
- Evolutionary Computation

ALife online

Chaotic and Complex Systems

Dynamical systems, it seems to me, are just a subset of computational systems. I agree, of course, that they are the type of computational systems of the most relevance to cognitive science.
Free Univ. Brussels (AI lab)
Free Univ. Brussels (Principia Cybernetica project)
Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley
Evolutionary history (Jared Diamond)
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, by Kevin Kelly, is my favourite popular intro to this whole field. The writing is poetic, powerful and sometimes beautiful. AI has finally made that long-postponed call to Down House to pick up the waiting Darwin, and together we're off into a more optimistic, biological future.

Natural Evolution

Google
- Evolution
- Paleontology
Reason, logic, evidence and argument:
talkorigins.org is the best place to go for an understanding of why evolutionary biology is just normal science, while "creationism" is not science, but religion.
- talk.origins (or via here)
- Index
- Introduction to Evolutionary Biology
- Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ
Wikipedia
Evolutionary and Geological Timelines (and in more detail)
- The Age of the Earth
- Evolutionary/Geological Timeline
Taxonomy
- The Tree of Life
- funet.fi taxonomy (direct to search)
Charles Darwin
- Origin of Species
  - Final chapter: "There is grandeur in this view of life"
Richard Dawkins
- World of Richard Dawkins
- Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1986.
- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 1976.
- Interview with Dawkins on evolution in Wired

Bad design

The argument from bad design is one of the strongest arguments that living things are evolved, not designed.

Argument from poor design
Vestigial structures
Evidence for Jury-Rigged Design in Nature
Short and long lists of vestigial features in organisms, by Loren Petrich
10 Worst Evolutionary Designs

"Creationism" and "Intelligent design"

Evolutionary biology conflicts with people's religious and philosophical beliefs in a way that most branches of science do not.

As a result, it is the object of endless controversy - a controversy caused by this conflict, not by the science.

Google
Wikipedia
- Creation–evolution controversy
- Creationism (and here)
- Intelligent design (i.e. Creationism) (and here)
talkorigins.org
- An Index to Creationist Claims
- The General Anti-Creationism FAQ (and here)
Argument from Design
- Watchmaker analogy
- Argument from poor design
Similar theories to creationism:
- Last Thursdayism - The idea that the world was created last Thursday, but with the appearance of age: people's memories, history books, fossils, light already on the way from distant stars, and so forth.
- Geocentrism
- Flat Earth Theory

Human Evolution

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