Abstract
The genetic algorithm (GA) is a computational procedure that `evolves' solutions to optimization problems by generating populations of possible solutions, and then by treating these solutions metaphorically as individuals that can `mate' and `compete' to `survive' and `reproduce'. In this paper, I explore how culturally specific notions of evolution, population, reproduction, sex/gender, and kinship inflect the ways GAs are assembled and understood. Combining the results of fieldwork among GA workers with analysis of GA texts, I contend that the picture of `nature' embedded in GAs is resonant with the values of secularized Judeo-Christian white middle-class US-American and European heterosexual culture. I also maintain that GA formulations are accented by languages inherited from sociobiology. I argue that examining GAs can help us track how dominant meanings of `nature' are being stabilized and refigured in an age in which exchanges of metaphor between biology and computer science are increasingly common.
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