Foreword
In 2003, Carl Simon asked Rick Riolo and me to organize a workshop on genetic
programming (GP). We decided to bring together people interested in the theory
of GP with people whose main focus was applying GP to “real-world” problems
and seeing what happens. We also included daily keynote speakers who were in
general not familiar with GP but who had challenging ideas in the areas of computer
science, commercial applications, and biological sciences. It was originally planned
as a one-off workshop, but after the first workshop, there was a lot of enthusiasm to
continue it, and so the Genetic Programming Theory and Practice (GPTP) workshop
became an annual event at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. This book is
the 13th such book written by the attendees of GPTP. Over the years, we have had
an amazing series of participants working in a wide range of fields who have refined
and expanded the understanding and application of GP.
It was entirely fitting then that the first keynote speaker at GPTP was John
Holland. For those who may not be familiar with John and his work, he is widely
credited with being one of the originators of genetic algorithms and was a founder of
the Santa Fe Institute, the Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University
of Michigan, and other key research centers focused on interdisciplinary studies. He
received what may have been the first PhD in computer science (from the U of
M) in 1959, and his work in complexity theory was central to the development of
complexity as an area of serious study.
John was a polymath who came of age in the heady times of computer science
when everything is not only seemed possible but inevitable. John never lost the
enthusiasm of those days and passed it along to his students, shared it with his
colleagues, and brought it to GPTP. As the chain of GPTP workshops unrolled,
John would stop in occasionally if there was a speaker he wanted to hear or a topic
that intrigued him. Though he never worked with GP himself, he had a knack for
going to the heart of a problem and suggesting new ideas and questions that opened
new vistas for exploration.
Perhaps more importantly, GPTP is infused with the spirit of the Center for the
Study of Complex Systems (CSCS) and the BACH group in particular. As such, it
is multidisciplinary and mathematically inclined and looks to find grand patterns
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