Directed Evolution: Evolving the Perfect Genome

This simulation designs and evolves a population of synthetic organisms toward a "perfect life" genome using a genuine genetic algorithm. Each organism carries a two-trait genome plotted on a 3D fitness landscape shaped by multiple Gaussian peaks — one tall global optimum and several shorter local optima. Every generation the population is scored, the fittest individual is preserved by elitism, parents are chosen by tournament selection, offspring are produced by weighted crossover, and mutation perturbs a fraction of the population so it can escape local hills. Adjustable population size, mutation rate, selection pressure and generation speed let you explore the classic exploration/exploitation trade-off of directed evolution — and watch, generation by generation, whether the population converges on the perfect optimum or gets trapped on a lesser peak.