Seminar: Modeling the Large-Scale Evolution of Programming Languages

06 Mar 2015

In this talk Sergi will explain how the development of programming languages can be used as a proxy to study cultural evolution. Is cultural evolution similar to biological evolution? The analogies and differences between biological and cultural evolution have been explored by evolutionary biologists, historians, engineers and linguists alike.
Both share some traits relating to the evolution of species, but technology is much more difficult to study. A major challenge in our way towards a scientific theory of technological evolution is how to properly define evolutionary trees or clades and how to weight the role played by horizontal transfer of information. Read more