The Plausible Mutation of DNA
Abstract
DNA may be regarded as a program for constructing and maintaining an organism. The field of Automatic Programming studies computer programs which synthesize new and different programs, or which modify and improve themselves. When DNA molecules do this, we call it Evolution. Biological research has to date identified several mechanisms which change DNA (substitution, insertion, deletion, translocation, inversion, recombination, segregation, transposition, etc.) Current theories assume the basic process of evolution to be random mutation (using these mechanisms) followed by natural selection. Early automatic programming systems were also built to work via this same Random Generate and Test process. But that mechanism failed, and we now recognize the reasons for that reason for that failure and the prescription for success. These results lead us to hypothesize that the generation of mutations may be highly non-random, that the dominant process of evolution in higher organisms is Plausible-Generate and Test. Long before our three billion line genetic program evolved randomly, Nature may have happened upon a more powerful method of automatic programming, such as heuristic search: the accretion and use of knowledge to guide the mutation process.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 06, 1980
- Accession Number
- ADA096802
Entities
People
- Douglas B. Lenat
Organizations
- Stanford University