Talk
Universality and entropy growth in evolutionary dynamics
- Matteo Smerlak (Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Canada)
Abstract
At its core, Darwinian evolution can be viewed as flow in the space of fitness distributions. (Here "fitness" refers to the reproductive success of organisms in a given environment.) I will show that this process has universal features, including the convergence to limiting distributions and the emergence of dynamical scaling. I will argue that these features are definite predictions of evolution through natural selection, which can be tested in silico and, soon, in vivo. Finally I will outline a connection to information theory and entropy optimization principles.