Discover Magazine's Darwin Special

Interesting and very instructive words.

A Nice Evolutionary Computation Year

This year, 2009, is full of nice dates to be celebrated!

Today is the birthday of Charles Darwin, the scientist who began evolutionary biology as we know it today. It's Darwin's 200th annivesary.

Also, this year it will be completed 150 years since the publication of a seminal book and one of the most influential along all the human history: On the Origin of Species.

Its contribution to our biological world understanding is tremendous, of course it left for a time so many gaps that Darwin was unable to give the correct and complete answers, but its merits overcast any imperfection it may have.

Another interesting date sends us back to 45 years ago: 1964. The destination is Germany and its beautiful capital city: Berlin. There, a seasoned senior student Ingo Rechenberg and a newbie Hans-Paul Schwefel are about to produce the first results that would pave the way for a branch of evolutionary computation: Evolution Strategies (or Evolutionsstrategie, in German). A crude, simple and -- why not? -- elegant experiment takes place. Its results would show both students the method could be worth to be worked on.

Now, let's jump 25 five years into the future. The year is 1989. An enthusiastic professor from the University of Alabama releases his first book which would set the stage in the near future for so many debates around evolutionary computation, evolutionary algorithms and, of course, genetic algorithms themselves. The book would become an evolutionary computation classic by its own merits, making the fine art of genetic algorithms reachable and, more important, understandable for the large wide audience out there. It was in this book that scientists, practioners, students, and professors had their first contacts with genetic algorithms and evolutionary computation, being hard to find nowadays someone who implemented a genetic algorithm without having heard and/or read the pages of Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization, and Machine Learning. Of course, it is impossible to publish something expecting everyone will agree with your ideas and that book has found so many readers along the time having each one a critique view about it. Be the critiques for praise or not, it is difficult not to tell the importance such a book (has) had inside evolutionary computation. But, something is very hard to deny: That is a great book to read. Despite some small imperfections the reader gets what the book promises: A nice introduction to genetic algorithms and enough understanding to code one in computer programming language.

The way Professor David Edward Goldberg teaches the reader is very instructive and clarifying. He even simulates by hand a simple step of a genetic algorithm.

This year is a year of celebration for all of us who had/have a contact with evolutionary ideas. Let's praise and thank all those persons who invested a nice amount of the time of their lives helping to build the fields in which so many researchers, students, and so on have followed since then.

Richard Feynman's Affair With Simulated Evolution

Interesting finding this one. Surely I am not joking, but I should state it is not a profound and complete involvement of Feynman's part -- at least I see through this way and I would not get surprised if I am totally wrong about that. However, as the paper author stated in another article:

The last project that I worked on with Richard was in simulated evolution. I had written a program that simulated the evolution of populations of sexually reproducing creatures over hundreds of thousands of generations. The results were surprising in that the fitness of the population made progress in sudden leaps rather than by the expected steady improvement. The fossil record shows some evidence that real biological evolution might also exhibit such "punctuated equilibrium," so Richard and I decided to look more closely at why it happened. He was feeling ill by that time, so I went out and spent the week with him in Pasadena, and we worked out a model of evolution of finite populations based on the Fokker Planck equations. When I got back to Boston I went to the library and discovered a book by Kimura on the subject, and much to my disappointment, all of our "discoveries" were covered in the first few pages. When I called back and told Richard what I had found, he was elated. "Hey, we got it right!" he said. "Not bad for amateurs."

It would be interesting showing before Feynman's eyes what have been done in the evolutionary computation field since then. His mind is the kind of those the field needs.

Amazing reading for a Saturday afternoon. :)

Evolving Virtual Creatures Through Simulated Evolution

Interesting project this one:

"This application is an example of evolutionary computing that you can run on your own Windows PC at home (see the download section). It uses a process similar to biological evolution to gradually evolve a population of virtual creatures in a 3D graphical and physical environment. Much of the inspiration for this project came from the wonderful work of Karl Sims. In the mid 90's Dr. Sims did something very similar, using an evolutionary algorithm to evolve the body plans and control systems of virtual creatures whose bodies were composed of jointed blocks. His creatures were evolved in simulated land and water environments for their ability to swim, walk, jump, follow a light source, and compete against opponents for control of a resource. See the related projects section for links some videos from Dr. Sims and links to other virtual creature evolution projects).

With this program you can watch a process of simulated Darwinian evolution unfold before your eyes (although the process can take several days of computer time depending on your computer speed and your evolution settings). The user is given control of many of the parameters of the evolution such as the size of the creature population, the mutation rate, the ability for which the creatures will be evolved, and many other settings. Users are encouraged to send me any interesting creatures they should happen to produce for inclusion in the Zoo. There are already numerous strange and interesting virtual creatures on display there, with many more to come."

Darwinmania

Very interesting articles from New York Times blogger Olivia Judson! In three parts, see them:

Darwinmania!

An Original Confession

Let’s Get Rid of Darwinism

Those articles are intended to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first announcement of [Darwin's] discovery of natural selection, the main driving force of evolution.

Excellent!!

Evolving Design Through Simulated Evolution

Amazing article from Elisava:

Bionics And Design: Witnesses To The Evolution Of This Approach.

Some quotes from the text:

"[...] Natural history research, even that which seems to be no more than the fruit of pure and empty curiosity, can have very real uses, which would be enough to justify it even to those who only want research into useful things, if before condemning we could have the patience to wait for time to show the use we could make of its [...]."

Rene-Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur, A History of Wasps - 1719.


"It is the story of the development of the branch of mathematics called the calculus of variations, which concerns questions of optimization —finding forms or patterns that maximize or minimize a particular quantity Is the igloo the optimal housing form for minimal heat loss to the outside? Do bees really use the least possible ammount of wax in constructing their hexagonal cells?"

Stefan Hildebrandt & Anthony Tromba - 1985


"The oldest shells in the universe are the crusts of the cooling stars... We can compare them to an egg-shell: they are formed on the surface of moving liquid drops. In long-ago prehistory, about 400 million years ago, living nature took advantage of the fact that a curved structure is 50 to 100 times stronger than a flat structure of the same thickness. This means that the protecting envelope around fragile micro-organisms can as much reduce the expense of material and weight as obtain a greater degree of protection[...]."

Heinz Isler - 1989


"I believe that flowers —vivacious or woody plants— not only present the most frequent type of shell, but that they are also those of the greatest beauty. They offer a complementary perfection: they are kinetic structures. According to need, they can vary their form to open or close the flower, or even to aid the process of pollinization[...]."

Heinz Isler - 1989


"Nature offers us a range of secrets that will not be revealed except with much patience and love [...]."

Le Ricolais - 1935-1969

Darwin And Wallace - 150 Years

Nice overview of the joint presentation held in 1858 - 150 years ago - to show up the first skunks upon evolution through natural selection, see here. The main enthusiasts involved in such a discussion were Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Both of them sent a representative to read their respective writings upon the subject. It's funny to know that the main hall of the famous Linnean Society of London was filled with persons holding a layman skill on evolution and science in general, very different from what a contemporary mind would expect, that is, "experts" following the 19th Century biology Zeitgeist.

It is such important day for evolutionary computation, since in 1858 was the "first generation" of its subsequent development!

I wonder what those two men would say if they saw what their ideas - and others' too - has helped to create and solve...

On Penguins And Submarines, Airplanes, And So On!

Interesting finding here:

Aerodynamics In The Animal World. Yes, I know: Another Google automatic translation. But, it is better to read something slightly comprehensible than nothing at all. The main ideas are very clear, I think. :)

The article has to do with the aerodynamics on animal bodies, such as the Penguin's, and how it deals with aerodynamical problems - turbulence, acceleration issues, and etc.

The Penguin's streamlined body could be an inspiration when it comes to submarine body design, helping to create even quieter, faster, and more efficient submarines. Let alone it could also be applied on other areas strongly relying on aerodynamics, such as airplanes, rockets, and etc.


See a short movie of the Ṕenguin's flight here.

Evolving Movie Contracts Through Simulated Evolution

MEDAL Blogging has a nice link to an application of genetic algorithms that I have not seen so far: movie contracts between distributors and theaters. See the whole story here.

The author of that investigation, Eunkyu Lee, implemented a hybrid method using genetic algorithm and game theory to help in that kind of business among the parts.

One of the current structures of those contracts is the so-called slide scale:

"These contracts usually come in the form of a sliding scale: in the first week, when the movie is most in demand, the studios get a larger share of the revenue - sometimes as much as 80 percent. As time goes by and demand decreases, the shares even out or reverse, giving theaters a more favorable cut of the revenue. These weekly revenue shares are negotiated on a movie-by-movie basis and are typically augmented by exception clauses for unexpectedly strong box office performances."

The method applied is helping to bring to light new ways to those structures:

"New research by Eunkyu Lee, associate professor of marketing in the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, questions the necessity of the complicated and costly contracting practice in the industry. Using a combination of game-theory and an optimization technique called genetic algorithm, Lee and his research partners analyzed different contract structures in simulated movie markets and compared their effectiveness and performance to the current sliding scale structure.

'The major finding of this analysis is that the contract between studios and theaters does not have to be as complicated as the current industry practice,' says Lee. 'Much simpler contracts such as a 50-50 split or a two-part tariff are just as effective as or better than the sliding scale, and they are also not as costly to implement.'"

Remember: "We'll always have Evolutionary Computation." :)

Evolutionary Computation News

Interesting news on genetic algorithms and a quick analysis of their academic/design impact upon those (and many other) areas. See here.

As you may see, there are persons which consider genetic algorithms too slow and others think they are too cute. :)

Some excerpts from the news:

"Yet there are drawbacks to the method. Although genetic algorithms have been applied with fantastic success in some cases, they fall short of being universal problem-solvers. And although evolutionary eons can be compressed into hours, finding the precise settings that will give a good solution can take months. How do you figure out which solutions are best? How often do you mutate the offspring? Computer scientists are reduced to trial-and-error knob-twiddling to get the right conditions."

"They’re too cute. Genetic algorithms don’t get bonus credibility just because that’s what nature did,"

"They are quite slow, and they require quite a bit of fiddling,"

"Genetic algorithms’ main contribution today are that they opened the door to biologically-inspired methods. The beauty and success of genetic algorithms motivated other computer scientists to look to biology for inspiration,"

By the way, I consider that genetic algorithms (and evolutionary algorithms in general) are very nice to solve problems, mainly when taking into account the lack of problem informations, such as no derivative available and/or so many constraints to handle.