Evolution of biological complexity (2000) pdf

Evolution of biological complexity
by Christoph Adami (Kellogg Radiation Laboratory), Charles Ofria (Beckman Institute, California Institute of Technology), and Travis C. Collier (Division of Organismic Biology, Ecology, and Evolution, University of California)
(Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 25, 2000, vol. 97, no. 9)

Abstract

To make a case for or against a trend in the evolution of complexity
in biological evolution, complexity needs to be both rigorously
defined and measurable. A recent information-theoretic (but intuitively
evident) definition identifies genomic complexity with the
amount of information a sequence stores about its environment.
Weinvestigate the evolution of genomic complexity in populations
of digital organisms and monitor in detail the evolutionary transitions
that increase complexity. We show that, because natural
selection forces genomes to behave as a natural ‘‘Maxwell Demon,’’
within a fixed environment, genomic complexity is forced to
increase.

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Evolution of biological complexity (2000)