Mark Humphrys - Research - AI Links - Evolution Links

Computational Evolution

Natural Evolution Human Evolution

Evolution Links

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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

• ALife online
• virtual pets

• AI programs online
• robots 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.

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Natural Evolution

• Wikipedia
  • Evolution
  • Evolution category
  • Transitional fossils
  • List of transitional fossils

• Reason, logic, evidence and argument:
  • How to Construct a Logical Argument
  • Logical Fallacies
  • The Fallacy Files

• 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
  • EvoWiki

• 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
  • On the Origin of Species (1859)
    • Final chapter: "There is grandeur in this view of life"

• 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.

• 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

• Human Evolution
• Fossil Hominidae images.

• talkorigins.org
  • Fossil Hominids: The Evidence for Human Evolution
  • Hominid Species
  • Primate Transitional Fossils
  • Top 10 Signs Of Evolution In Modern Man

• The Tree of Life
  • Hominidae

• You can buy hominid skull casts.

• Common ancestors of all humans

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Show last common ancestor of humans with: (e.g. chimp, dog, mouse, earwig, tuna, carrot)
From timetree.org

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