One of the most well known methodological criticisms of evolutionary psychology is Gould's claim that the program pays too much attention to adaptations, and not enough to exaptations. Almost as well known is the standard rebuttal of that criticism: namely, that the study of exaptations in fact depends on the study of adaptations. However, as I try to show in this paper, it is premature to think that this is where this debate ends. First, the notion of exaptation that is commonly used in this debate is different from the one that Gould and Vrba originally defined. Noting this is particularly important, since, second, the standard reply to Gould's criticism only works if the criticism is framed in terms of the former notion of exaptation, and not the latter. However, third, this ultimately does not change the outcome of the debate much, as evolutionary psychologists can respond to the revamped criticism of their program by claiming that the original notion of exaptation is theoretically and empirically uninteresting. By discussing these issues further, I also seek to determine, more generally, which ways of approaching the adaptationism debate in evolutionary biology are useful, and which not.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Adaptation and Exaptation: From Small Molecules to Feathers.
J Mol Evol
April 2022
NASA Center for the Origins of Life, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0400, USA.
Evolution works by adaptation and exaptation. At an organismal level, exaptation and adaptation are seen in the formation of organelles and the advent of multicellularity. At the sub-organismal level, molecular systems such as proteins and RNAs readily undergo adaptation and exaptation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHas the hippocampus really forgotten about space?
Curr Opin Neurobiol
December 2021
SISSA - Cognitive Neuroscience, Trieste, Italy; Kavli Centre for Neural Computation, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. Electronic address:
Several lines of evidence, including the discovery of place cells, have contributed to the notion that the hippocampus serves primarily to navigate the environment, as a repository of spatial memories, like a drawer full of charts; and that in some species it has exapted on this original one an episodic memory function. We argue that recent evidence questions the primacy of space, and points at memory load, whether spatial or not, as the challenge that mammalian hippocampal circuitry has evolved to meet.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEmergence of the Revolutionary Subject: Evolutionary Psychology and the Exaptive Tactics of the Everyday.
Integr Psychol Behav Sci
December 2022
Department of Historical Sociology, Univerzita Karlova Praha (Charles University Prague), Prague, Czech Republic.
This article proposes an alternative view of the revolutionary subject. By building on insights from the critical streams of evolutionary psychology, it argues for the notion of revolutionary consciousness to be grounded in the categories of 'exaptive actorness' which are most notably manifested in everyday micropolitics. By emphasising the role of contingency, spontaneity, creativity, resourcefulness and, crucially, formal indeterminism and autonomy, exaptationism emerges as an irreducible and irrevocable enabling tactic of subsistence and subversion, as well as the very essence of the revolutionary act.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnveiling Human Non-Random Genome Editing Mechanisms Activated in Response to Chronic Environmental Changes: I. Where Might These Mechanisms Come from and What Might They Have Led To?
Cells
October 2020
Department of Biomolecular Sciences, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, 61029 Urbino, Italy.
This article challenges the notion of the randomness of mutations in eukaryotic cells by unveiling stress-induced human non-random genome editing mechanisms. To account for the existence of such mechanisms, I have developed molecular concepts of the cell environment and cell environmental stressors and, making use of a large quantity of published data, hypothesised the origin of some crucial biological leaps along the evolutionary path of life on Earth under the pressure of natural selection, in particular, (1) virus-cell mating as a primordial form of sexual recombination and symbiosis; (2) Lamarckian CRISPR-Cas systems; (3) eukaryotic gene development; (4) antiviral activity of retrotransposon-guided mutagenic enzymes; and finally, (5) the exaptation of antiviral mutagenic mechanisms to stress-induced genome editing mechanisms directed at "hyper-transcribed" endogenous genes. Genes transcribed at their maximum rate (hyper-transcribed), yet still unable to meet new chronic environmental demands generated by "pollution", are inadequate and generate more and more intronic retrotransposon transcripts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFour Principles Regarding an Effective Treatment of Aging.
Curr Aging Sci
August 2019
National Gerontology Centre, Larnaca 6021, Cyprus.
The question whether aging is a disease or not, has been asked by many professionals who are involved in the study of age-related degeneration. However, not only an agreement on this remains elusive, but also effective clinical treatments against human aging have not been forthcoming. In this Opinion paper I suggest that the complexity involved in aging is such that we need to remodel our thinking to involve a much more 'systems-oriented' approach.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWant AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?
Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!