Computational Insights and the Theory of Evolution

I shall discuss recent work (much of it joint with biologists Adi Livnat and Stanford's Marcus Feldman, and more recently with Greg Valiant) on some central problems in Evolution that was inspired and informed by computational ideas. Considerations about the performance of genetic algorithms led to a novel theory on the role of sex in Evolution based on the concept of mixability. And a natural random process on Boolean functions can help us understand better Addington's genetic assimilation experiments, in which an acquired trait becomes genetic, and also to demonstrate a process whereby a novel advantageous trait can emerge in the whole population, without the spreading of mutations.

Speaker: Christos Papadimitriou U.C. Berkeley