Randomness + determinism = progresses: Why random processes could be favored by evolution

Biologists are somehow pioneers on the idea that progress can be driven by randomness: randomness is one of the main engine of evolution; small variations induced by randomness coupled with natural selection allows the species to self-adapt to their moving environment. Studies from the last 40 years...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Progress in biophysics and molecular biology 2012-09, Vol.110 (1), p.129-136
Main Author: Schabanel, Nicolas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Applications of computer science to biology modeling
Biological Evolution
Computers
Probability
Randomness
Stochastic Processes
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Summary:Biologists are somehow pioneers on the idea that progress can be driven by randomness: randomness is one of the main engine of evolution; small variations induced by randomness coupled with natural selection allows the species to self-adapt to their moving environment. Studies from the last 40 years in computer science suggest that randomness is in fact able of doing much more and revealed unexpected possibilities which might appear impossible at first. Furthermore, it turns out that these discoveries are faster, cheaper and above all exponentially thriftier than their deterministic alternatives. This means that random explorations would almost surely generate a stochastic process way before any equivalent deterministic counterpart is found. It follows that most likely these processes are favored by evolution and should thus be known to anyone dealing with systems (alive or not) having access to random sources. This article presents some of these counter-intuitive results as a possible source of inspiration for studying systems fed with randomness.
ISSN:0079-6107
1873-1732
DOI:10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2012.05.007