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In the last decades, however, the field has experienced an explosion of metaphor-centered methods claiming to be inspired by increasingly absurd natural (and even supernatural) phenomena\u2014several different types of birds, mammals, fish and invertebrates, soccer and volleyball, reincarnation, zombies, and gods. Although metaphors can be powerful inspiration tools, the emergence of hundreds of barely discernible algorithmic variants under different labels and nomenclatures has been counterproductive to the scientific progress of the field, as it neither improves our ability to understand and simulate biological systems nor contributes generalizable knowledge or design principles for global optimization approaches. In this article we discuss some of the possible causes of this trend, its negative consequences for the field, and some efforts aimed at moving the area of metaheuristics toward a better balance between inspiration and scientific soundness.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1162\/artl_a_00402","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,7,11]],"date-time":"2023-07-11T13:50:31Z","timestamp":1689083431000},"page":"421-432","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1162\/mitpressjournals.corrections.policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":20,"title":["Lessons from the <i>Evolutionary Computation Bestiary<\/i>"],"prefix":"10.1162","volume":"29","author":[{"given":"Felipe","family":"Campelo","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Aston University, College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. f.campelo@aston.ac.uk"}]},{"given":"Claus","family":"Aranha","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of Tsukuba, Faculty of Systems and Information, Engineering"}]}],"member":"281","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"2024010320315027200_bib1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1007\/s11721-021-00202-9","article-title":"Metaphor-based metaheuristics, a call for action: The elephant in the room","volume":"16","author":"Aranha","year":"2022","journal-title":"Swarm Intelligence,"},{"issue":"7604","key":"2024010320315027200_bib2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"452","DOI":"10.1038\/533452a","article-title":"1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility","volume":"533","author":"Baker","year":"2016","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"2024010320315027200_bib3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1805","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-540-92910-9_53","article-title":"Artificial life","volume-title":"Handbook of natural computing","author":"Banzhaf","year":"2012"},{"issue":"1","key":"2024010320315027200_bib4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"9","DOI":"10.1007\/BF02430363","article-title":"Designing and reporting on computational experiments with Heuristic methods","volume":"1","author":"Barr","year":"1995","journal-title":"Journal of Heuristics"},{"issue":"10","key":"2024010320315027200_bib5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"384","DOI":"10.1177\/0141076814548526","article-title":"Science for sale: The rise of predatory journals","volume":"107","author":"Bartholomew","year":"2014","journal-title":"Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine"},{"key":"2024010320315027200_bib6","author":"Bartz-Beielstein","year":"2020","journal-title":"Benchmarking in optimization: Best practice and open issues"},{"issue":"1","key":"2024010320315027200_bib7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"3","DOI":"10.1023\/A:1015059928466","article-title":"Evolution strategies\u2014a comprehensive introduction","volume":"1","author":"Beyer","year":"2002","journal-title":"Natural Computing"},{"issue":"3","key":"2024010320315027200_bib8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"403","DOI":"10.1109\/TEVC.2015.2474158","article-title":"Automatic component-wise design of multiobjective evolutionary algorithms","volume":"20","author":"Bezerra","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation"},{"issue":"2","key":"2024010320315027200_bib9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"195","DOI":"10.1162\/evco_a_00263","article-title":"Automatically designing state-of-the-art multi and many-objective evolutionary algorithms","volume":"28","author":"Bezerra","year":"2020","journal-title":"Evolutionary Computation"},{"key":"2024010320315027200_bib10","first-page":"106","article-title":"Optimization through evolution and recombination","volume":"93","author":"Bremermann","year":"1962","journal-title":"Self-Organizing Systems"},{"key":"2024010320315027200_bib11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"302","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-030-00533-7_24","article-title":"Why the intelligent water drops cannot be considered as a novel algorithm","volume-title":"Swarm intelligence. 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