Abstract
As part of the extended evolutionary synthesis, there has recently been a new emphasis on the effects of biological development on genetic inheritance and variation. The exciting new directions taken by those in the community have by a pre-history filled with related ideas that were never given a rigorous foundation or combined coherently. Part of the historical background of the extended synthesis is the work of James Mark Baldwin on his so-called “Baldwin Effect.” Many variant re-interpretations of his work obscure the original meaning of the Baldwin Effect. This paper emphasizes a new approach to the Baldwin Effect, focusing on his work in developmental psychology and how that would impact evolution. We propose a novel population genetics model of the Baldwin Effect. First, the impact of a kind of learning process motivated by motor babbling, in the developmental psychology literature, on evolution; second, that Information-theoretic phenotype reshaping speeds up evolution compared to populations without this kind of learning. The basic idea behind the model is to allow the organism to apply abstraction to his initial phenotype to situate it within one of a few different classes of phenotypes in the local neighborhood of a fitness maximum. The reshaping of the phenotype space thereby allows the organism to reach a nearby fitness maximum. By so doing, valleys in the fitness landscape are leveled out, making a rugged fitness landscape into a set of mesas and plateaus with increasing height. Using this model we can show the first sizeable speed-up for the Baldwin Effect compared to ordinary population genetics. We also introduce an information-theoretic foundation for the Baldwin Effect, which may be of independent interest.
Highlights
Phenotypic plasticity (DeWitt and Scheiner, 2004), under its different aspects has come into sharp focus recently as a possible source for genotypic change, with some going so far as calling this set of new ideas an extended evolutionary synthesis (Laland et al, 2015)
Antecedents of the extended synthesis were pondered by James Mark Baldwin in his work on the Baldwin Effect
In this paper we focus on two more novel influences of phenotypic plasticity on evolution: first, the impact of a kind of learning process motivated by motor babbling (Information-theoretic phenotype reshaping), in the developmental psychology literature, on evolution; second, that Information-theoretic phenotype reshaping speeds up evolution compared to populations without this kind of learning, all using ordinary population genetics
Summary
Phenotypic plasticity (DeWitt and Scheiner, 2004), under its different aspects (learning, social and cultural innovation) has come into sharp focus recently as a possible source for genotypic change, with some going so far as calling this set of new ideas an extended evolutionary synthesis (Laland et al, 2015). The Baldwin Effect, as understood by Baldwin himself is analyzed with a close reading of his work in developmental psychology We conclude that his intention was to show how new kinds of behaviors could develop via abstraction that would allow for very advanced information-processing by an organism with the rudiments of phenotypic plasticity. The core insight is to show that the ability for organisms to undergo rewardbased sensorimotor abstraction during their youth allows them to effectively flatten the hills in a rugged landscape In human neonates, this process of play (as motor babbling Meltzoff and Moore, 1997) combined with intrinsic and extrinsic reward, allows them to reach novel representations for goals. Of possible independent interest is a link established between the Baldwin Effect and a certain kind of information-processing that is nearly optimal for the Gaussian channel (in an Information-theoretic sense)
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