There has been considerable discussion of the pros/cons of recombination and mutation operators in the context of Holland's schema theory. In this paper we de ne a common framework for extending and relating previous \disruption" and \construction" analyses for both recombination and mutation. This results in several insights into the properties of recombination and mutation, including a No Free Lunch theorem for recombination operators as well as the lack of such a theorem for mutation.
William M. Spears, Kenneth A. De Jong