TY  - GEN
ID  - cogprints1799
UR  - http://cogprints.org/1799/
A1  - Turney, Peter
Y1  - 2000///
N2  - The idea that there are any large-scale trends in the evolution of biological organisms is highly controversial. It is commonly believed, for example, that there is a large-scale trend in evolution towards increasing complexity, but empirical and theoretical arguments undermine this belief. Natural selection results in organisms that are well adapted to their local environments, but it is not clear how local adaptation can produce a global trend. In this paper, I present a simple computational model, in which local adaptation to a randomly changing environment results in a global trend towards increasing evolutionary versatility. In this model, for evolutionary versatility to increase without bound, the environment must be highly dynamic. The model also shows that unbounded evolutionary versatility implies an accelerating evolutionary pace. I believe that unbounded increase in evolutionary versatility is a large-scale trend in evolution. I discuss some of the testable predictions about organismal evolution that are suggested by the model. 
PB  - MIT Press
KW  - evolutionary trends
KW  -  evolutionary progress
KW  -  large-scale trends
KW  -  evolutionary versatility
KW  -  evolvability
KW  -  Baldwin effect.
TI  - A simple model of unbounded evolutionary versatility as a largest-scale trend in organismal evolution
SP  - 109
AV  - public
EP  - 128
ER  -

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