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adaptation
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Evolutionary Psychology | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy iep.utm.edu 15 facts
procedureFunctional analysis, as proposed by John Tooby and Leda Cosmides, is a six-step procedure for identifying adaptations: (1) use evolutionary considerations to model past adaptive problems, (2) generate hypotheses about how these problems manifested under ancestral selection pressures, (3) formulate a 'computational theory' specifying the information processing problems to be solved, (4) use the computational theory as a heuristic to generate testable hypotheses about the structure of cognitive programs, (5) rule out alternative explanations that do not involve natural selection, and (6) test the adaptationist hypotheses by checking if modern humans possess the postulated cognitive mechanisms.
referenceMargie Profet published 'Pregnancy Sickness as Adaptation: A Deterrent to Maternal Ingestion of Teratogens' in the 1992 book 'The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture', edited by Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby.
referenceDifferent adaptations have different environments of evolutionary adaptedness (EEAs); for example, language is anchored in the last two million years, while infant attachment reflects a much lengthier evolutionary history.
claimCognitive mechanisms produced by natural selection are adaptations for survival in Pleistocene conditions, rather than for modern tasks like playing chess, passing logic exams, navigating large cities, or maintaining weight in an environment with fast food.
referenceDonald Symons published 'Adaptiveness and Adaptation' in the journal 'Ethology and Sociobiology' in 1990.
claimJohn Tooby and Leda Cosmides define evidence of an adaptation as a reliably developing feature of a species' architecture that solves an adaptive problem with reliability, precision, efficiency, and economy.
quoteDonald Symons (1990) stated: “[t]he hypothesis that a trait is an adaptation does not imply that the trait is currently adaptive.”
procedureResearchers can identify an aspect of an organism’s physical, developmental, or psychological structure as an adaptation by following these steps: (1) demonstrate that it has many design features that are improbably well suited to solving an ancestral adaptive problem, (2) demonstrate that these phenotypic properties are unlikely to have arisen by chance alone, and (3) demonstrate that they are not better explained as the by-product of mechanisms designed to solve some alternative adaptive problem or some more inclusive class of adaptive problem.
claimAdaptations are traits that persist in the present because they provided a selective advantage in the past environment, which differs significantly from the current environment.
quote"Finding that a reliably developing feature of the species’ architecture solves an adaptive problem with reliability, precision, efficiency, and economy is prima facie evidence that an adaptation has been located."
claimEvolutionary psychologists distinguish between whether a trait is an adaptation and whether it is currently adaptive, separating their approach from 'Darwinian anthropology' which focuses on the current adaptiveness of behavior.
referenceTim Caro and Monique Borgerhoff Mulder published 'The Problem of Adaptation in the Study of Human Behavior' in 1987, discussing the challenges of identifying adaptations in human behavior.
claimEvolutionary psychologists utilize adaptationist reasoning, a method derived from evolutionary biology that explains the presence of a trait by asserting it is an adaptation that enhanced the fitness of an organism's ancestors.
claimA trait is defined as an 'adaptation' if it was designed by natural selection to solve specific problems posed by the ancestral environment of a species, whereas a trait is defined as 'adaptive' if it currently enhances the bearer's fitness.
referenceJohn Tooby and Leda Cosmides' paper 'On the Universality of Human Nature and the Uniqueness of the Individual: The Role of Genetics and Adaptation' (1990) presents a genetic argument that cognitive adaptations are human universals.
Evolutionary psychology - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org 13 facts
referenceGeorge C. Williams published 'Adaptation and Natural Selection: A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought' in 1966.
claimEvolutionary psychology posits that self-deception is an adaptation that can improve an individual's outcomes in social exchanges.
claimNoam Chomsky suggests that language likely evolved as a byproduct of some other adaptation, known as a spandrel, rather than evolving as an adaptation itself.
quoteGeorge C. Williams suggested that an adaptation is a special and onerous concept that should only be used where it is really necessary.
claimCharles Darwin's theories of evolution, adaptation, and natural selection provide insights into the functional reasons for the operations of human minds and brains.
claimSleep may have evolved as an adaptation to conserve energy during times when activity is less fruitful or more dangerous, such as at night or during the winter season.
referenceIn evolutionary psychology, an adaptation is defined as an organismic trait designed to solve an ancestral problem, characterized by complexity, special design, and functionality, with bones and the umbilical cord serving as physiological examples and toddlers' ability to learn to talk with minimal instruction serving as a psychological example.
referenceIn evolutionary psychology, random variation is defined as random variations in an adaptation or byproduct, with bumps on the skull and convex or concave belly button shapes serving as physiological examples and variations in verbal intelligence serving as a psychological example.
claimThe range of frequencies over which an animal hears is determined by adaptation.
claimSome critics argue that researchers know so little about the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation (EEA) that explaining specific traits as an adaptation to that environment is highly speculative.
claimPaul W. Andrews and J. Anderson Thomson proposed that depression functions as an adaptation for analyzing complex problems.
claimSteven Pinker describes evolutionary psychology not as a single theory, but as a large set of hypotheses and a specific way of applying evolutionary theory to the mind, emphasizing adaptation, gene-level selection, and modularity.
claimThe environment of evolutionary adaptiveness is defined as the set of historically recurring selection pressures that formed a specific adaptation, along with the environmental aspects necessary for that adaptation's proper development and functioning.
Resolving the evolutionary paradox of consciousness link.springer.com Apr 1, 2024 3 facts
claimThe phenomenal powers view cannot explain adaptive-seeming correlations between sensations and evolutionary fitness via adaptation due to major problems identified by the author.
perspectiveThe author of 'Resolving the evolutionary paradox of consciousness' concludes that physicalism, dualism, and panpsychism do not explain adaptive-seeming correlations between sensations and evolutionary fitness via adaptation.
claimThe character and structure of an adaptation are connected to its function, as demonstrated by bird wings and feathers enabling flight.
Complexity and the Evolution of Consciousness | Biological Theory link.springer.com Sep 14, 2022 1 fact
referencePittendrigh (1958) discusses adaptation, natural selection, and behavior.
Practices, opportunities and challenges in the fusion of knowledge ... frontiersin.org 1 fact
claimAlternative strategies like CokeBERT and HKLM shift the focus from knowledge injection to adaptation and format generalization, but they expose gaps in controllability and transparency, particularly in interactive settings.
Medicinal plants meet modern biodiversity science - OUCI ouci.dntb.gov.ua 1 fact
referenceKroymann et al. analyzed natural diversity and adaptation in plant secondary metabolism.
Compendium Vol. 5 No. 1: The ecological role of native plants bio4climate.org 1 fact
claimInvasive species exert selection pressure on the communities they enter, leading to rapid adaptation that is inherited by subsequent generations.
Psychedelics, Sociality, and Human Evolution frontiersin.org 1 fact
referenceR. J. Sullivan and E. H. Hagen published a paper titled 'Psychotropic substance-seeking: evolutionary pathology or adaptation?' in the journal Addiction in 2002.