(March 19, 2018 at 9:42 pm)polymath257 Wrote: Well. gene duplication with subsequent divergence is equivalent to new information. In fact, the duplication itself is technically an increase of information. The subsequent divergence is produced through selection by the environment.
Indeed. The neutral gene theory holds that duplicated genes which are not detrimental to the fitness of the agent are retained because there is no pressure to get rid of them. Although they do not necessarily increase the fitness of the agent that has the duplicated gene, it does open up the search space for future generations because it is extra DNA that can be mutated.
I do this the whole time with my evolutionary algorithms. I cannot know a-priori how large the genotype needs to be, nor do I want it any larger than it needs to be. So I start off small and let it grow during the course of the evolutionary run.
