Increasing Evolvability Considered as a Large-Scale Trend in Evolution

TL;DR

This paper presents a computational model demonstrating that evolvability can increase indefinitely as a large-scale trend in evolution, leading to an accelerating pace of evolutionary change without direct selection for evolvability.

Contribution

It introduces a simple model showing that evolvability can grow indefinitely, suggesting it as a fundamental large-scale trend in biological and cultural evolution.

Findings

Evolvability can increase indefinitely under certain conditions.

Increasing evolvability correlates with an accelerating evolutionary pace.

The hypothesis predicts testable outcomes in biological and cultural evolution.

Abstract

Evolvability is the capacity to evolve. This paper introduces a simple computational model of evolvability and demonstrates that, under certain conditions, evolvability can increase indefinitely, even when there is no direct selection for evolvability. The model shows that increasing evolvability implies an accelerating evolutionary pace. It is suggested that the conditions for indefinitely increasing evolvability are satisfied in biological and cultural evolution. We claim that increasing evolvability is a large-scale trend in evolution. This hypothesis leads to testable predictions about biological and cultural evolution.