In his PhD Thesis titled "Compositional Evolution", Richard A. Watson (now at Harvard University) argues that interdependencies between modules in the genotype of an evolutionary system are associated with the ruggedness of the fitness landscape, see http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/faculty/wakeley/richard/index.html (Table 1-1 on page 9, Figure 3-3 on page 83 of his thesis)
* Weak interdependencies: smooth fitness landscape with a few optima * Modular interdependencies (between a few modules): a fitness landscape with some ruggedness * Arbitrary strong interdependencies: highly rugged landscape with many local optima Looks plausible, but is there hard evidence for it ? Is this true in general for evolutionary systems ? -J. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
