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Kuhnian philosophy of science implies that progress in the study of open-ended evolution (OEE) would be accelerated if the OEE science community were to agree on some examples of striking success in OEE science. This article recounts the important role of scientific paradigms and scientific exemplars in creating the productivity of what Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, calls "normal" science, and it describes how the study of OEE today would benefit from exhibiting more of the hallmarks of normal science. The article concludes by describing five proposed projects that would help create a consensus in the OEE community on some good examples of the scientific study of OEE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is an editorial introduction to a special issue on Open-Ended Evolution (OEE) in the journal Artificial Life. The introduction explains that OEE is defined by its behavioral hallmarks, which include the ongoing generation of adaptive novelty and the growth of complexity. The special issue presents articles that address OEE from various perspectives, including the study of OEE as a form of cultural evolution. The articles discuss different models and methods for testing and analyzing OEE, and highlight the challenges and potential for further research in this field. The editors hope that the special issue will inspire readers to contribute to the study of OEE and provide new insights into its key challenges. [Extracted from the article]

The robust behavior of the patent citation network is a complex target of recent bottom-up models in science. This paper investigates the purpose and testing of three especially simple bottom-up models of the citation count distribution observed in the patent citation network. The complex causal webs in the models generate weakly emergent patterns of behavior, and this explains both the need for empirical observation of computer simulations of the models and the epistemic harmlessness of the resulting epistemic opacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]