On Sex, Evolution, and the Multiplicative Weights Update Algorithm

8 years 1 months ago

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We consider a recent innovative theory by Chastain et al. on the role of sex in evolution [10]. In short, the theory suggests that the evolutionary process of gene recombination implements the celebrated multiplicative weights updates algorithm (MWUA). They prove that the population dynamics induced by sexual reproduction can be precisely modeled by genes that use MWUA as their learning strategy in a particular coordination game. The result holds in the environments of weak selection, under the assumption that the population frequencies remain a product distribution. We revisit the theory, eliminating both the requirement of weak selection and any assumption on the distribution of the population. Removing the assumption of product distributions is crucial, since as we show, this assumption is inconsistent with the population dynamics. We show that the marginal allele distributions induced by the population dynamics precisely match the marginals induced by a multiplicative weights upda...

Reshef Meir, David C. Parkes

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