Lessons from the GP Schema Theory

This chapter considers different ways in which we can use the schema theory described in the previous chapters to better understand the dynamics of genetic programming populations. We will also illustrate the possible uses of the schema theory to clarify concepts such as effective fitness (next section), biases in GP (Section 6.2), building blocks (Section 6.3), problem hardness and deception (Section 6.5). We also discuss new ideas inspired by schema theories (Section 6.4).