The quoted paper is from 2018. Evolutionary programming is IMO similar to a search algorithm. The biosphere is not. It's not searching; it's removing unfit matches. Which is far less efficient.

I'm a big fan of evolutionary programming; it's just inefficient in the past. I think LLM agents might just be the little advantage they need, like guided missiles with GPS.

Evolutionary programming is hard though. I think it might answer OP's question - it's something that's difficult enough for most people to avoid, but there would be greatly increased interest in it.