russ,
I little sober reflection (no pun intended) will reveal that David Sloan
Wilson's "trait group selection" is actually a mechanism for quantitative
inheritance of group traits. See
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/id49.html
where you can download the pdf by clicking on the abstract
or download the pdf directly from
http://www.clarku.edu/faculty/nthompson/1-websitestuff/Texts/2000-2005/Shifting_the_natural_selection_metaphor_to_the_group_level.pdf
The full treatment of this mechanism is in DSW's Natural Selection of
Populations and Communities (?) 1979, i think.
Enjoy,
N
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected])
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
----- Original Message -----
From: Russ Abbott
To: ERIC P. CHARLES
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Sent: 3/9/2010 9:12:04 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Genetic algorithm for groups
Thanks, Eric. Very interesting message. But it didn't address the questions I
asked.
Does anyone know of any work on a genetic algorithm system that supports group
selection -- or of papers in that specific area.
Thanks.
-- Russ Abbott
______________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
cell: 310-621-3805
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
______________________________________
On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 7:16 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[email protected]> wrote:
Russ, et. al,
I should send an email focusing on group selection, but instead I will point
out, on a very related note, that there was a pretty nice altruism article
published by some of the people on the list not too long ago ;- )
http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/9/2/4.html -- That article demonstrates that a
strategy that always co-operates, but changes partners if faced with a
defector, out performs strategies that only co-operate under certain
circumstances (e.g., the much revered tit-for-tat). At least one of the authors
knows Wilson pretty darn well, and another got to present the paper in a
symposium with Wilson and got pretty good compliments.
I had a fantasy about creating a genetic algorithms version of the same
program, but got side tracked on other projects. The idea was that we would
start with a population of all non-co-operators non-leavers. Each would have a
"chromosome" where there was a low probability it would "mutate", gaining or
losing whichever ability the gene represented. Presumably it would take many,
many generations for co-operation to emerge as a contender in the population.
Given a limited number of generations, most ! populations would be unlikely to
evolve altruism (i.e., the occasional mutation would be quickly eliminated).
However, the interesting study would be too look back at those populations in
which altruism DID evolved, and determine the order of events. Our hypothesis,
based on the prior simulation (and the really good logic behind it) would be
that leaving evolves first, then co-operation. At least, that would be the
typical pattern.
It would be a really fun study, and I would be happy to help put it together.
It would be done already except for two factors 1) a dispersion of the
interested parties and 2) new Netlogo versions required tweaking the original
program more than the remaining brain-power allowed. The last version was
pretty heavily documented (admittedly by people who are not skilled at the
art), so it shouldn't take a skilled programer too long to fix it up.
Anyway, already a longer email than intended,
Eric
P.S. Nick knows the group! selection stuff backwards and forwards. I can do
pretty good ! schpeel too, and you should scold me for not having answered your
question more exactly. The reason this is related is because group selection is
only an interesting conversation (i.e., only a controversial conversation) if
you are trying to use it to explain the evolution of altruism.
On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 08:52 PM, Russ Abbott <[email protected]> wrote:
David Sloan Wilson has been an advocate of group selection in evolution for
quite a while. (And I think he's right.) What I'd like to know is whether
anyone knows of any work on group selection in a (computational) genetic algo!
rithm context.
Suppose I wanted to evolve a fleet of cars for a car rental agency. One
approach would be a genetic algorithm in which the population elements were
fleets, each of which is a collection of cars. Crossover would generate
children fleets some of whose cars were copied from each parent.
In addition, I want to assume that the car properties themselves are evolvable.
So one could, for example, crossover two cars to produce offspring cars with
properties from the two parents.
This has also been called multi-level selection because evolution takes place
at multiple levels at once: in this case at the fleet level and at the car
level simultaneously
Is anyone aware of a framework that supports this sort of process? Or is
anyone aware of any papers that describe results in this area?
Thanks.
-- Russ
-- Russ Abbott
______________________________________
Professor, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles
cell: 310-621-3805
blog: http://russabbott.blogspot.com/
vita: http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
______________________________________
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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