WRIGHT,SEWALL MEETS ARTIFICIAL LIFE - THE ORIGIN AND MAINTENANCE OF EVOLUTIONARY NOVELTY

A decade ago, Langton coined the term Artificial Life (A-Life) to iden tify the new field of research that is attempting to create and charac terize open-ended evolving systems using diverse computer based method s. Fruitful interactions between A Life research and that of conventio nal biological sciences (B-Life) are rare. Using the framework of mole cular and evolutionary genetics, we discuss some of the reasons for th is lack of conceptual cross-pollination between the disciplines and we identify some potential areas for interdisciplinary collaboration.