The guided or accelerated process of evolutionary change driven by human-designed selection pressures, rather than natural ones. This is done through direct genetic engineering (CRISPR), simulated evolution via genetic algorithms in software, or by creating controlled environments where only organisms with desired traits can survive and reproduce. The goal is to "breed" solutions—new materials, optimized proteins, or even novel lifeforms—at a pace millions of times faster than blind nature.
Artificial Evolution Example: Using a genetic algorithm to evolve the most efficient shape for a turbine blade by simulating thousands of generations of mutation and selection in a computer is Artificial Evolution. In a lab, forcing generations of bacteria to survive on toxic waste, thereby evolving strains that can clean it up, is directing evolution with a human goal.
by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 3, 2026
Get the Artificial Evolution mug.The study of the evolutionary pathways and forces that have shaped life on other worlds, under environmental conditions utterly different from Earth's. This field theorizes about how natural selection might work in a high-gravity ocean world, under a perpetual twilight, or in a volatile, tectonically supercharged environment. It asks how sensory systems, locomotion, and intelligence might develop when the fundamental rules of the game—gravity, chemistry, energy sources—are changed.
Example: Theorizing about the Alien Evolution of the "sky-whales" of a gas giant: they might evolve hydrogen-filled bladders for buoyancy, filter-feeding on atmospheric microbes, and develop complex sonar for navigation in the perpetual clouds. It's using the logic of Darwinian evolution, but with a completely alien starting deck of environmental cards.
by Abzugal Nammugal Enkigal February 3, 2026
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