"when you simulate evolutionary systems you can create systems far more complex than the algorithm used to generate them, the problem domain, or any other factor prior to running the simulation."<p>Possible. I have to admit I'd have to think more carefully about this, but I'm not sure it's a knockdown win either. In the real world, the extra information comes from the environment in its capacity as a selection mechanism. It is a large source of such information. Simulations tend to have a radically simplified selection mechanism, what with not containing reality and all. Just because something looks complicated and can't be effectively gzip'ed doesn't mean its actually high in information, it's tricky stuff. I'd be much more inclined to buy this, if evolutionary programming was much more impressive than it actually is and actually routinely pulled off programs that were clearly high in information value.<p>(I've actually spent a bit of time with evolutionary computation. It has one of the largest hype/reality ratios in computer science.)<p>"Reproducibility does not involve the lab that made the discovery sending the devices used to make the discovery to another lab."<p>This is an artifact of the fact that is impossible to do this with physical objects, so we've built the mechanics of science around not being able to do that. Don't mistake historical accidents with scientific imperative. While it is still absolutely desirable that simulations as independently-constructed as possible and give as similar a result as possible, if there was an equivalent in the physical world of being able to rigorously examine someone else's experiment we would be doing that. How long would Cold Fusion have lasted if that was available?<p>Science is inevitably a product of its environment. We don't demand particle-physics precision from the sociologists not because it is undesirable, but because it is impossible. We don't pass around experimental apparatus to each other for examination not because it is undesirable, but because it is impossible. It isn't impossible for simulations. We're allowed to tweak our procedure in response. Science is not a religion.