What is Baldwinian?
Filters. Of or relating to James Mark Baldwin (1861–1934), American philosopher and psychologist who contributed to early psychiatry and the theory of evolution. adjective.
What is Baldwin theory?
The Baldwin effect, also known as Baldwinian evolution or ontogenic evolution, is an early evolutionary theory put forward in 1896 in a paper “A New Factor in Evolution” by American psychologist James Mark Baldwin which proposes a mechanism for specific selection for general learning ability.
What caused the downfall of Baldwin’s theories about culture and evolution?
Although Baldwin conducted no further empirical research in this period and his theories began to be displaced by the rediscovery of Mendelian inheritance, he continued to discuss the links between ontogenesis and phylogenesis with notable thinkers in the French-speaking world, including Pierre Janet.
What did James Baldwin say about inheriting learned abilities?
Baldwin proposed that individual learning can explain evolutionary phenomena that appear to support Lamarckian inheritance. As time goes on the ability to learn the behavior will improve (by genetic selection), and at some point it will seem to be an instinct.
How does genetic assimilation work?
Genetic assimilation is a process described by Conrad H. Waddington by which a phenotype originally produced in response to an environmental condition, such as exposure to a teratogen, later becomes genetically encoded via artificial selection or natural selection.
What is Baldwin effect in machine learning?
Baldwin proposed that individual learning can explain evolutionary phenomena that appear to require Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics. The ability of individuals to learn can guide the evolutionary process. In effect, learning smooths the fitness landscape, thus facilitating evolution.
What did Baldwin conclude about cultural and genetic evolution?
Models of the Baldwin Effect have shown that plasticity can greatly accelerate both phenotypic and genetic evolution (Hinton & Nowlan, 1987). This is because plasticity can expose variation in the ability to acquire a trait during development, where without such plas- ticity there would be no relevant variation.
What is genetic accommodation?
Genetic accommodation is any adaptive genetic change in the environmental regulation of a phenotype. For example, a trait may evolve either (A) increased or (B) decreased environmental sensitivity (i.e. phenotypic plasticity).
Why are people interested in the Baldwin effect?
In 1987 Geoffrey Hinton and Steven Nowlan demonstrated by computer simulation that learning can accelerate evolution, and they associated this with the Baldwin effect. Paul Griffiths suggests two reasons for the continuing interest in the Baldwin effect. The first is the role mind is understood to play in the effect.
How is Baldwinian learning used in the immune system?
The Baldwinian learning operator simulates the learning mechanism in immune system by employing information from within the antibody population to alter the search space. It makes use of the exploration performed by the phenotype to facilitate the evolutionary search for good genotypes.
Which is an advantage of Baldwinian learning in evolution?
An advantage of Baldwinian learning is that it can flatten out the fitness landscape around the optimal regions [44]and thus enlarges the basin of allocated around the optimal regions. The increase in genetic polymorphism and the enlargement of the basin of attraction can improve the evolution process.
How did James Mark Baldwin contribute to Darwinism?
James Mark Baldwin and others suggested during the eclipse of Darwinism in the late 19th century that an organism’s ability to learn new behaviours (e.g. to acclimatise to a new stressor) will affect its reproductive success and will therefore have an effect on the genetic makeup of its species through natural selection.