A History of Metaheuristics

This chapter describes the history of metaheuristics in five distinct periods, starting long before the first use of the term and extending far into the future. The field of metaheuristics has undergone several paradigm shifts—changes that have transformed the way researchers approach the development of heuristic methods. Most notably, there has been a shift from the method-centric period, in which metaheuristics were thought of as algorithms, to the framework-centric period, in which researchers view metaheuristics as more general high-level frameworks, i.e., consistent collections of concepts and ideas that offer guidelines on how to solve an optimization problem heuristically. Tremendous progress has been made in the development of heuristics over the years. Optimization problems that seemed intractable only a few decades ago can now be efficiently solved. Nevertheless, there is still much room for evolution in the research field—an evolution that will allow it to transition into the scientific period. In this period, we will see more structured knowledge generation that will benefit both researchers and practitioners. Unfortunately, a significant fraction of the research community has deluded itself into thinking that scientific progress can be achieved by resorting to ever more outlandish metaphors as the basis for the so-called novel methods. Even though considerable damage to the research field will have been inflicted by the time these ideas are eradicated, there is no doubt that science will ultimately prevail.