Bullock, Seth. “Evolutionary simulation models: On their character, and application to problems concerning the evolution of natural signalling systems.” PhD diss., University of Sussex, 1997.
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Evolutionary simulation modelling is presented as a method ology involving the application of modelling techniques developed within the artificial scien s to evolutionary problems. Although modelling work employing this methodology has a long and int eresting history, it has remained, until recently, a relatively underdeveloped practice, lac king a unifying theoretical framework. Within this thesis, evolutionary simulation modelling wil l be defined as the use of simulations, constructed under constraints imposed by evolutionary the ories, to explore the adequacy of these theories, through the modelling of an adaptive system’s ong oing evolution. Evolutionary simulation models may be considered to lie wit hin he field of artificial life, since its concerns include theories of life, evolution, dynamica l systems, and the relationshipbetween artificial and natural adaptive systems. Simultaneously, evo lutionary simulation modelling should be regarded as distinct from, yet complementing, existing evo luti nary modelling techniques within the biological sciences. The ambit of evolutionary simulation modelling includes th ose systems towards which one is able to take thevolutionary perspective , i.e., systems comprising agents which change over time through the action of some adaptive process. This perspecti ve is broad, allowing evolutionary simulation models to address linguisticmodels of glossoge neticchange, anthropologicalmodels of cultural development, and models of economic learning, as w ell as models of biological evolution. Once this methodology has been defined, it is applied to a grou p of problems current within theoretical biology, concerning the evolution of natural s ignalling systems. The ubiquity of natural communication is a well attested phe nomenon. However, recently the utility of such communication within a world populated by ne o-Darwinian selfish individuals has been questioned. Theoretical models proposed to account fo r the existence of signalling within the animal kingdom are reviewed, and evolutionary simulation m odels are constructed in an attempt to assess these theories. Specifically, models of the evolut ion of complex symmetry, and models of the evolution of honesty, are addressed.