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Replaying the Tape: An Investigation into the Role of Contingency in Evolution
  
  Tim Taylor,  John Hallam
1998

Abstract
The role of contingency (random events) in an artificial evolutionary system is investigated by running the system a number of times under exactly the same conditions except for the seed used to initialize the random number generator at the beginning of each run. Twelve different measures were used to track the course of evolution in each run, and "activity wave diagrams" were also produced. The results of 19 runs are presented and analyzed. The performance of every run was compared with each of the others using a non-parametric test (a randomization version of the paired-sample t test). When comparing absolute values of the measures between the runs, some significant differences were found. However, looking at the difference in values between adjacent sample points for a run, no run was significantly different to any other for any of the measures. This suggests that the general behaviour is the same in all runs, but the accumulation of differences results in significantly different outcomes. The results lead us to propose a rule of thumb for future experiments with the system: to check whether the outcome of any particular experiment is robust to contingency in the evolutionary process, at least nine runs should be conducted using different seeds for the random number generator, to be confident of seeing a variety of results. The results are likely to be applicable to other A-Life platforms of self-replicating computer programs, but at this stage can probably tell us little about the role of contingency in biological evolution

 
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Reference
<span id="taylor1998replaying">Taylor, T., &amp; Hallam, J. (1998). Replaying the Tape: An Investigation into the Role of Contingency in Evolution. In C. Adami, R. K. Belew, H. Kitano, &amp; C. E. Taylor (Eds.), <i>Artificial Life VI: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Artificial Life</i> (pp. 256–265). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.</span>

BibTeX
@inproceedings{taylor1998replaying,
  title = {Replaying the Tape: An Investigation into the Role of Contingency in Evolution},
  author = {Taylor, Tim and Hallam, John},
  pages = {256-265},
  booktitle = {Artificial Life VI: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Artificial Life},
  editor = {Adami, Christoph and Belew, Richard K. and Kitano, Hiroaki and Taylor, Charles E.},
  publisher = {MIT Press},
  address = {Cambridge, MA},
  year = {1998},
  category = {conference},
  keywords = {cosmos}
}

   
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor1999selfreproduction">Taylor, T. (1999). <b>On Self-Reproduction and Evolvability</b>. In D. Floreano, J.-D. Nicoud, &amp; F. Mondada (Eds.), <i>Advances in Artificial Life. ECAL 1999</i> (pp. 94–103). https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48304-7_15</span></div>

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    <pre>@inproceedings{taylor1999selfreproduction,
  title = {On Self-Reproduction and Evolvability},
  author = {Taylor, Tim},
  year = {1999},
  booktitle = {Advances in Artificial Life. ECAL 1999},
  series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
  volume = {1674},
  pages = {94-103},
  editor = {Floreano, Dario and Nicoud, Jean-Daniel and Mondada, Francesco},
  doi = {10.1007/3-540-48304-7_15},
  publisher = {Springer},
  address = {Berlin},
  category = {conference},
  keywords = {selfrep, cosmos}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor1999creativity">Taylor, T. (1999). <b>Creativity in Evolution: Individuals, Interactions and Environments</b>. In P. J. Bentley &amp; D. W. Corne (Eds.), <i>Proceedings of the AISB’99 Symposium on Creative Evolutionary Systems</i> (pp. 8–17). The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour.</span></div>

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    <pre>@inproceedings{taylor1999creativity,
  author = {Taylor, Tim},
  title = {Creativity in Evolution: Individuals, Interactions and Environments},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the AISB'99 Symposium on Creative Evolutionary Systems},
  year = {1999},
  editor = {Bentley, Peter J. and Corne, David W.},
  pages = {8-17},
  publisher = {The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour},
  isbn = {1902956036},
  category = {conference},
  keywords = {creativity, cosmos}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor1999artificial">Taylor, T. J. (1999). <i><b>From Artificial Evolution to Artificial Life</b></i> (PhD thesis). School of Informatics, College of Science and Engineering, University of Edinburgh.</span></div>

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    <pre>@phdthesis{taylor1999artificial,
  author = {Taylor, Timothy John},
  title = {From Artificial Evolution to Artificial Life},
  school = {School of Informatics, College of Science and Engineering, University of Edinburgh},
  year = {1999},
  uri = {http://hdl.handle.net/1842/361},
  category = {dissertation},
  keywords = {selfrep, oee, cosmos}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor1997studying">Taylor, T., &amp; Hallam, J. (1997). <b>Studying Evolution with Self-Replicating Computer Programs</b>. In P. Husbands &amp; I. Harvey (Eds.), <i>Fourth European Conference on Artificial Life</i> (pp. 550–559). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.</span></div>

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    <pre>@inproceedings{taylor1997studying,
  title = {Studying Evolution with Self-Replicating Computer Programs},
  author = {Taylor, Tim and Hallam, John},
  pages = {550--559},
  booktitle = {Fourth European Conference on Artificial Life},
  editor = {Husbands, Phil and Harvey, Inman},
  publisher = {MIT Press},
  address = {Cambridge, MA},
  isbn = {0262581574},
  year = {1997},
  category = {conference},
  keywords = {cosmos, selfrep}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor1997cosmos">Taylor, T. (1997). <i><b>The COSMOS Artificial Life System</b></i> (Departmental Working Paper No. 263). Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh.</span></div>

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    <pre>@techreport{taylor1997cosmos,
  author = {Taylor, Tim},
  title = {The COSMOS Artificial Life System},
  institution = {Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh},
  year = {1997},
  type = {Departmental Working Paper},
  number = {263},
  month = oct,
  category = {techreport},
  keywords = {cosmos},
  note = {Version 2.0: May 1999}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor1996study">Taylor, T. (1996). <i><b>PhD Proposal: A Study of Evolution in Self-Replicating Parallel Computer Programs</b></i> (Departmental Discussion Paper No. 169). Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh.</span></div>

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    <pre>@techreport{taylor1996study,
  author = {Taylor, Tim},
  title = {PhD Proposal: A Study of Evolution in Self-Replicating Parallel Computer Programs},
  institution = {Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh},
  year = {1996},
  type = {Departmental Discussion Paper},
  number = {169},
  month = jun,
  category = {techreport},
  keywords = {cosmos}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor1996cosmos">Taylor, T. (1996). <i><b>The COSMOS Environment and REPLiCa Programming Language</b></i> (Departmental Working Paper No. 259). Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh.</span></div>

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  author = {Taylor, Tim},
  title = {The COSMOS Environment and REPLiCa Programming Language},
  institution = {Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh},
  year = {1996},
  type = {Departmental Working Paper},
  number = {259},
  month = jun,
  category = {techreport},
  keywords = {cosmos}
}
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<div class="overflow-scroll"><span id="taylor1996incorporation">Taylor, T. (1996). <i><b>On the Incorporation of a Developmental Process in a System of Self-Replicating Programs</b></i> (Departmental Working Paper No. 258). Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh.</span></div>

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  author = {Taylor, Tim},
  title = {On the Incorporation of a Developmental Process in a System of Self-Replicating Programs},
  institution = {Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh},
  year = {1996},
  type = {Departmental Working Paper},
  number = {258},
  month = jan,
  category = {techreport},
  keywords = {cosmos}
}
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