Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!hplabs!hpcc05!hpwrce!kingsley
From: kingsley@hpwrce.HP.COM (Kingsley Morse)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: evolution is not a scale
Message-ID: <1870014@hpwrce.HP.COM>
Date: 20 Dec 90 17:52:16 GMT
References: <70996@bu.edu.bu.edu>
Organization: HP Western Response Center
Lines: 18

/ hpwrce:comp.ai / colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby) /  7:43 pm  Dec 18, 1990 /

>The idea that evolution is a linear scale with humans at the pinnacle
>is simply not true.
>
>From a single common ancestor life multiplied and species diverged into many 
>branches.

I'm interested in evolution, and applying it to AI. I've been assuming that 
evolution is goal directed, in a sense. I'm interested in feedback on my 
assumption. 

Do you think it's possible that Darwin's theory of natural selection uses
"fitness" as a goal? In other words, Darwin proposed that "survival of the
fittest" causes succeeding generations to be ever better adapted to
the environment. Could successively fitter generations be considered a "scale",
in that any given branch of evolution has "fitter" genes at it's leaves than
at the root?