  We consider the effects of social learning on the individual learning and
genetic evolution of a colony of artificial agents capable of genetic,
individual and social modes of adaptation. We confirm that there is strong
selection pressure to acquire traits of individual learning and social learning
when these are adaptive traits. We show that selection pressure for learning of
either kind can supress selection pressure for reproduction or greater fitness.
We show that social learning differs from individual learning in that it can
support a second evolutionary system that is decoupled from the biological
evolutionary system. This decoupling leads to an emergent interaction where
immature agents are more likely to engage in learning activities than mature
agents.
