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Lack of evidentiary criteria for exaptations?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2003

James L. Dannemiller
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53705 [email protected] http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/vislab/

Abstract

Andrews et al. criticize Gould and colleagues for (1) failing to provide evidentiary criteria for accepting exaptationist alternatives to adaptationist explanations, and (2) seeing exaptations and spandrels as being far more frequent than adaptations in the evolutionary history of modern humans. I argue that the first of these criticisms is wrong, and the second reflects a bias for the classical version of Darwinian evolutionary theory, which Gould was trying to expand by proposing concepts like exaptation and spandrels.

Type
Brief Report
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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