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I was thinking "New Kind of Science" while reading this. I think they are saying that a wide variety of programs yield similar results, something that appears to mirror Wolfram's findings. In other words, the robustness of genes in not producing lots of freaks is not a product of evolution, but a product of how the interpretation of genes works.

Perhaps if we drop back to some of the early thought on this:

In Experiments in Plant Hybridization (1865)

by Gregor Mendel

there is discussion of character, hybrid, and generations, but it was too early for genes and chromosomes.

"Gärtner, by the results of these transformation experiments, was led to oppose the opinion of those naturalists who dispute the stability of plant species and believe in a continuous evolution of vegetation. He perceives in the complete transformation of one species into another an indubitable proof that species are fixed with limits beyond which they cannot change."

We might be getting wrapped around the gene axle.

You might find that Stuart Kaufman's "Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution" is even more on point here than the Wolfram book. Kaufman applies the conceptual toolbox of statistical mechanics to look at the evolution of complex systems.

Table of Contents

	Themes
1	Conceptual Outline of Current Evolutionary Theory	3
Pt. I	Adaptation on the Edge of Chaos	29
2	The Structure of Rugged Fitness Landscapes	33
3	Biological Implications of Rugged Fitness Landscapes	69
4	The Structure of Adaptive Landscapes Underlying Protein Evolution	121
5	Self-Organization and Adaptation in Complex Systems	173
6	The Dynamics of Coevolving Systems	237
Pt. II	The Crystallization of Life	285
7	The Origins of Life: A New View	287
8	The Origin of a Connected Metabolism	343
9	Hypercycles and Coding	357
10	Random Grammars: Models of Functional Integration and Transformation	369
Pt. III	Order and Ontogeny	407
11	The Architecture of Genetic Regulatory Circuits and Its Evolution	411
12	Differentiation: The Dynamical Behaviors of Genetic Regulatory	441
13	Selection for Cell Types	523
14	Morphology, Maps, and the Spatial Ordering of Integrated Tissues