Editing Genetic algorithm (section)

==== Heuristics ====

In addition to the main operators above, other [[heuristic]]s may be employed to make the calculation faster or more robust. The ''speciation'' heuristic penalizes crossover between candidate solutions that are too similar; this encourages population diversity and helps prevent premature convergence to a less optimal solution.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Handbook of Evolutionary Computation|last1=Deb|first1=Kalyanmoy|last2=Spears|first2=William M.|s2cid=3547258|publisher=Institute of Physics Publishing|year=1997|chapter=C6.2: Speciation methods}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=Handbook of Natural Computing|last=Shir|first=Ofer M.|date=2012|publisher=Springer Berlin Heidelberg|isbn=9783540929093|editor-last=Rozenberg|editor-first=Grzegorz|pages=1035–1069|language=en|chapter=Niching in Evolutionary Algorithms|doi=10.1007/978-3-540-92910-9_32|editor-last2=Bäck|editor-first2=Thomas|editor-last3=Kok|editor-first3=Joost N.}}</ref>