Simulating Evolution

hey at hey at
Thu Aug 29 08:03:44 EST 1991

I just read in the NYtimes (tuesday 8/27/91) about a computer language
developed by Dr. Thomas Ray at Univ. Delaware that apparently enables
strikingly *lifelike* simulations of the evolutionary process. Apparently
individuals take the shape of short programs. Individuals can interact and
mutate etc.  
   Danny Hillis, of Thinking Machines fame, used to run simulations on his
massively parallel machines. Each processor would represent an individual
program whose *fitness* was a function of how fast it completed a sorting job.
This was great stuff, and the evolutionary biologists in attendance were
	The stuff I read about Ray's simulations sounded more realistic though.
It seemed that an individuals fitness was not an assessment of
performance but rather fitness was actually a result of how an individual
survived in the local RAM.  
	Does anyone know more about Ray's stuff. Is anything published outside
of the lay press. Thanks for any info
Jody Hey   Rutgers University

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