Evolutionary Genetic Systems and Human Agency
Among evolutionary genetic systems, HBGA is the computer-based analogue of genetic engineering (Allan, 2005). This table compares systems on lines of human agency:
| system | sequences | innovator | selector |
|---|---|---|---|
| natural selection | nucleotide | nature | nature |
| artificial selection | nucleotide | nature | human |
| genetic engineering | nucleotide | human | human |
| human-based genetic algorithm | data | human | human |
| interactive genetic algorithm | data | computer | human |
| genetic algorithm | data | computer | computer |
One obvious pattern in the table is the division between organic (top) and computer systems (bottom). Another is the vertical symmetry between autonomous systems (top and bottom) and human-interactive systems (middle).
Looking to the right, the selector is the agent that decides fitness in the system. It determines which variations will reproduce and contribute to the next generation. In natural populations, and in genetic algorithms, these decisions are automatic; whereas in typical HBGA systems, they are made by people.
The innovator is the agent of genetic change. The innovator mutates and recombines the genetic material, to produce the variations on which the selector operates. In most organic and computer-based systems (top and bottom), innovation is automatic, operating without human intervention. In HBGA, the innovators are people.
HBGA is roughly similar to genetic engineering. In both systems, the innovators and selectors are people. The main difference lies in the genetic material they work with: electronic data vs. polynucleotide sequences.
Read more about this topic: Human-based Genetic Algorithm
Famous quotes containing the words evolutionary, genetic, systems, human and/or agency:
“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.”
—Stanley Weiser, U.S. screenwriter, and Oliver Stone. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas)
“Man is not merely the sum of his masks. Behind the shifting face of personality is a hard nugget of self, a genetic gift.... The self is malleable but elastic, snapping back to its original shape like a rubber band. Mental illness is no myth, as some have claimed. It is a disturbance in our sense of possession of a stable inner self that survives its personae.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“Before anything else, we need a new age of Enlightenment. Our present political systems must relinquish their claims on truth, justice and freedom and have to replace them with the search for truth, justice, freedom and reason.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“And what is an authentic madman? It is a man who preferred to become mad, in the socially accepted sense of the word, rather than forfeit a certain superior idea of human honor. So society has strangled in its asylums all those it wanted to get rid of or protect itself from, because they refused to become its accomplices in certain great nastinesses. For a madman is also a man whom society did not want to hear and whom it wanted to prevent from uttering certain intolerable truths.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
“It is possible that the telephone has been responsible for more business inefficiency than any other agency except laudanum.... In the old days when you wanted to get in touch with a man you wrote a note, sprinkled it with sand, and gave it to a man on horseback. It probably was delivered within half an hour, depending on how big a lunch the horse had had. But in these busy days of rush-rush-rush, it is sometimes a week before you can catch your man on the telephone.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)