Evolution of Digital Organisms
A digital organism in Avida-ED.Copyright 2011 Rob Pennock, Michigan State University
Students are introduced to the concepts of digital organisms and digital evolution. They learn about the research that digital evolution software makes possible, and compare and contrast it with biological evolution.
Computer scientists and engineers work together to create software and hardware to model complex systems and create new technologies. The digital evolution software, Avida, was created by a group of computer scientists and software engineers interested in the experimental study of digital organisms in order to better understand how biological natural selection works and then to apply that knowledge to solving computational problems. Evolutionary computation methods can be applied to solve a wide range of engineering design problems, such as the design of self-managing computational systems, robot software, and even the morphological (form and structure) characteristics of robots.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Compare and contrast digital evolution with biological evolution.
- Discuss the strengths and limitations of using digital evolution software to study biological evolution.
- Discuss how natural selection leads to adaptation both biologically and digitally.