Alternatives to Darwinian evolutionAlternatives to Darwinian evolution have been proposed by scholars investigating biology to explain signs of evolution and the relatedness of different groups of living things. The alternatives in question do not deny that evolutionary changes over time are the origin of the diversity of life, nor that the organisms alive today share a common ancestor from the distant past (or ancestors, in some proposals); rather, they propose alternative mechanisms of evolutionary change over time, arguing against mutations acted on by natural selection as the most important driver of evolutionary change.
Unit of selectionA unit of selection is a biological entity within the hierarchy of biological organization (for example, an entity such as: a self-replicating molecule, a gene, a cell, an organism, a group, or a species) that is subject to natural selection. There is debate among evolutionary biologists about the extent to which evolution has been shaped by selective pressures acting at these different levels. There is debate over the relative importance of the units themselves.
Evolutionary programmingEvolutionary programming is one of the four major evolutionary algorithm paradigms. It is similar to genetic programming, but the structure of the program to be optimized is fixed, while its numerical parameters are allowed to evolve. It was first used by Lawrence J. Fogel in the US in 1960 in order to use simulated evolution as a learning process aiming to generate artificial intelligence. Fogel used finite-state machines as predictors and evolved them.
Vue de l'évolution centrée sur les gènesvignette|Richard Dawkins La vue de l'évolution centrée sur les gènes, théorie de la sélection par les gènes ou du gène égoïste (en) est une conséquence de la théorie de l’évolution par sélection naturelle de Charles Darwin. Elle s’appuie sur le résultat de différentes recherches visant à expliquer l’apparition de traits altruistes chez les êtres vivants. Les contributeurs à ces recherches sont J. B. S. Haldane qui a étudié l’altruisme dans les populations, des biologistes de l’évolution et des sociobiologistes comme Robert Trivers.
Système immunitaire artificielUn système immunitaire artificiel (SIA) est une catégorie d'algorithme inspirée par les principes et le fonctionnement du système immunitaire naturel (SIN) des vertébrés. Ces algorithmes exploitent typiquement les caractéristiques du système immunitaire pour ce qui est de l'apprentissage et de la mémorisation comme moyens de résolution de problèmes. Les fonctionnements simulés dans les SIA comprennent la reconnaissance de motifs, l'hypermutation, la sélection clonale pour les cellules B, la pour les cellules T, la et la théorie des réseaux immunitaires.
Facilitated variationThe theory of facilitated variation demonstrates how seemingly complex biological systems can arise through a limited number of regulatory genetic changes, through the differential re-use of pre-existing developmental components. The theory was presented in 2005 by Marc W. Kirschner (a professor and chair at the Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School) and John C. Gerhart (a professor at the Graduate School, University of California, Berkeley).
