Most hypotheses on evolution are verified through analysis of historical records. There are also hypotheses based on analyses of intraspecies and interspecies comparisons. We have experimented with plants for thousands of years. There are relatively few experiments with animals, mostly with species where the intergenerational period is very short, and where such experimentation is ethically acceptable.
We propose a very different approach, based on the concept of optimizing within a search space.
We conceive evolution as a search for optimization in a very large multi-dimensional search space. All species at the same locality that can potentially interact are represented in that search space, and all are changing slowly over time to improve their rate of reproduction and survival.
The dimensionality of such a search space is problematic, since it should capture not only propinquity but also essential properties that enable individuals of that species to function as predator or prey. Factors relating to mating and survival of offspring must be represented. Information processing as described above will be represented in a number of ways, since it affects the ability to recognize and catch food, as well as the ability to recognize and escape from predators, and the ability to recognize and attract good mates.
Values on these dimensions will be distributed about the mean for each of the species, and mapped into reproduction and survivability measures.
At this point in our investigation we do not need an actual specification of such a search space, we only need the concept to establish a new approach for supporting / falsifying hypotheses about the evolution of information processing.