A meeting held at the Santa Fe Institute during the summer of 1993 brought together a small group of biologists, psychologists, and computer scientists with shared interests in questions of evolution. This volume consists of papers that explore interacting adaptive systems from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives.

About half of the articles are classic, seminal references on the subject, ranging from biologists like Lamarck and Waddington to psychologists like Piaget and Skinner. The other half represent new work by the workshop participants. The role played by mathematical and computational tools, both as models of natural phenomena and as algorithms useful in their own right, is particularly emphasized in these new papers. In all cases, the prefaces help to put the older papers in a modern context. For the new papers, the prefaces have been written by colleagues from a discipline other than the papers authors, and highlight, for example, what a computer scientist can learn from a biologists model, or vice versa. Through these cross-disciplinary dialogues and a glossary collecting multidisciplinary connotations of pivotal terms, the process of interdisciplinary investigation itself becomes a central theme.

* Introduction R.K. Belew and M. Mitchell
Biology * Overview
* Adaptive Computation in Ecology and Evolution: A Guide to Future Research J. Roughgarden, A. Bergman, S. Shafir, and C. Taylor
Reprinted Classics
* The Classics in Their Context, and in Ours J. Schull
* Of the Influence of the Environment on the Activities and Habits of Animals, and the Influence of the Activities and Habits of These Living Bodies in Modifying Their Organization and Structure J.B. Lamarck
* A New Factor in Evolution J.M. Baldwin
* On Modification and Variation C. Lloyd Morgan
* Canalization of Development and the Inheritance of Acquired Characters C.H. Waddington
* The Baldwin Effect G.G. Simpson
* The Role of Somatic Change in Evolution G. Bateson
New Work * A Model of Individual Adaptive Behavior in a Fluctuating Environment L. A. Zhivotovsky, A. Bergman, and M. W. Feldman
* The Baldwin Effect in the Immune System: Learning by Somatic Hypermutation R. Hightower, S. Forrest, and A. S. Perelson
* The Effect of Memory Length on Individual Fitness in a Lizard S. Shafir and J. Roughgarden
* Latent Energy Environments F. Menczer and R. K. Belew

Psychology * Overview
* The Causes and Effects of Evolutionary Simulation in the Behavioral Sciences P.M. Todd
Reprinted Classics * Excerpts from Principles of Biology H. Spencer
* Excerpts from Principles of Psychology H. Spencer

* William James and the Broader Implications of a Multilevel Selectionism J. Schull
* Excerpts from The Phylogeny and Ontogeny of Behavior B.F. Skinner
* Excerpts from Adaptation and Intelligence: Organic Selection and Phenocopy J. Piaget
* Selective Costs and Benefits of in the Evolution of Learning T. D. Johnston
New Work * Sexual Selection and the Evolution of Learning P. M. Todd
* Discontinuity in Evolution: How Different Levels of Organization Imply Preadaptation O. Miglino, S. Nolfi, and D. Parisi
* The Influence of Learning on Evolution D. Parisi and S. Nolfi

Computer Science * Overview
* Computation and the Natural Sciences R. K. Belew, M. Mitchell, and D. H. Ackley
Reprinted Classics
* How Learning Can Guide Evolution G. E. Hinton and S. J. Nowlan
* Natural Selection: When Learning Guides Evolution J. Maynard Smith
New Work * Simulations Combining Evolution and Learning M. L. Littman
* Optimization with Genetic Algorithm Hybrids that Use Local Searches W. E. Hart and R. K. Belew