How Learning Can Guide Evolution
The assumption that acquired character istics are not in­ herited is ofte n taken to imply t hat t he adaptations t hat an organism learns dur ing its lifeti me cannot guide t he course of evolut ion . This infere nce is incor rec t (2). Learni ng alt ers the shape of t he search space in which evolu tio n operates and thereby pro vides good evolut ion ar y paths towa rds sets of co-adapted alleles. We demonst r at e t hat th is effect allows learning organisms to evolve much faster than their 000 ­ learning equivalents, even though the characteris tics acquired by t he phenotype are not communicated to the genotype.