1998 PSY 252F Term Project

You will perform a SimLife computer-simulation project which you will write up and submit by December 4. The project should be in the form of an experiment or demonstration employing the SimLife program. The project should be a reasonably major undertaking involving at least 25 hours of computer time.

Term Paper
The term project will be written up as a paper containing the following parts.
1. A brief statement of the objective of the project, which should be to study some principle of evolutionary biology.
2. A brief review of the theoretical rationale of the project. This rationale might be based on your reading of Dawkins or on some other scholarly source or sources. I do not expect this to be a major library research project. However, you should cite and describe one or a few scholarly sources which constitute the basis of the evolutionary principle or principles which form the rationale of your project.
3. A methods section in which you describe in detail how you went about implementing the rationale which you have outlined.
4. A results section in which you describe your findings. This section might contain 'before' and 'after' species prototype genomes, statistical comparisons, or any other material which is needed to describe and summarise your findings. Exactly what is needed will depend upon the nature of your project.
5. A discussion section in which you explain how the results either did or did not agree with the premises set out in the objectives and rationale for the project. If things did not work out as planned or expected, you should try to explain why. Such an explanation might involve the features and limitations of the SimLife program, the incorrectness of the theoretical model, etc.

Computer Files
In addition to the term paper, you must document your project by handing in SimLife files. These files should be sufficient to document how the world was set up initially and the evolutionary changes which occurred. Exactly what is needed will vary with the nature of the project. We will discuss on an individual basis which and how many of these files need to be handed in to document your particular project.