Watt is a new species?

As evolutionary algorithms evolve (apparently a quasi-Lemarkian form of evolution where what you learn by using evolutionary algorithms end up affecting the evolutionary algorithm itself) they look less and less like their ancestors. They soon become a new species, not just the next generation of their parents.

(BTW, AIP's Inside Science News Service has a Mother's Day article on epigenetics that is interesting - but way beyond my pay grade.)

I just did a quick comparison of WattsNEAT with Jason Gauci's version of HyperNEAT. Did these two exemplars come from the same solar system, or even galaxy? Could have fooled me.

Here are the only observable common traits. They both go through cycles of complexification and pruning. The way they go through these cycles has transmogrified into something unrecognizable, unless you consider alleles a form of CPPN (which IMO they are).

I wonder if recursion, which is a scale form of recurrence, converts source code into their fractal representation and back while you're not looking, or is it just entropy, crossover and mutation? I ask because the crossover and mutation functions really look different now.