A comparison of crossover and mutation in genetic programming

This paper presents a large and systematic body of data on the relative effectiveness of mutation, crossover, and combinations of mutation and crossover in genetic programming (GP). The literature of traditional genetic algorithms contains related studies, but mutation and crossover in GP differ from their traditional counterparts in significant ways. In this paper we present the results from a very large experimental data set, the equivalent of approximately 12,000 typical runs of a GP system, systematically exploring a range of parameter settings. The resulting data may be useful not only for practitioners seeking to optimize parameters for GP runs, but also for theorists exploring issues such as the role of “building blocks ” in GP.