Title: Who Needs Genomes?

Authors:

  Barry McMullin, Dublin City University
  Tim Taylor, University of Abertay Dundee
  Axel von Kamp, Dublin City University

Abstract:

The first abstract but detailed mechanistic models for genetically based
reproduction were developed by John von Neumann in the period
1948-1953. Subsequent elaboration of the structure and function of DNA
proved von Neumann's designs to have been strikingly prescient. However,
some significant questions still remain as to the specific benefits of
this particular reproductive architecture. These questions are relevant
both to understanding the evolutionary emergence of such systems, and
their proper role in engineered or synthetic evolutionary systems. This
paper will review these issues, and present some preliminary results of
novel evolutionary experiments in the Tierra system, where artificial
"organisms" are deliberately engineered to have an *evolvable* genetic
architecture.