Introduction
I am a theoretical biologist researching evolutionary and adaptive systems. My focus is to extend the Darwinian framework, to understand the full scope and efficacy of natural selection as an algorithmic process. I study the operation of natural selection in non-genetic systems, e.g. metabolic systems enclosed in protocells, populations of non-enzymatic nucleic acid replicators, ecosystems of organisms, neural representations, and financial markets. My research program aims to extend our concept of what constitutes a unit of selection by demonstrating how natural selection can operate using mathematical and computer models of a wide variety of complex systems. The principle focus from 2008 to the present has been the Neuronal Replicator Hypothesis.
After studying medicine at Wadham College, Oxford, I practiced at the John Radcliffe Hospital. My family tree is available here.
