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A Taxonomy of Non-fitness

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Abstract

The current evolutionary taxonomy is biased towards traits that enhance the organism’s fitness. Here, an extended taxonomy aimed to correct this bias is proposed, which distinguishes among different categories of non-fitness traits based on their usefulness for the organism as well as their origin. It is suggested these new non-fitness categories could help to solve the controversy surrounding the term exaptation in evolutionary psychology.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Stuart Newman for his encouragement. I acknowledge support from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (Grant Numbers: R01-DE018234, R01-DE019638 to R. Marcucio and B. Hallgrímsson).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, San Francisco General Hospital, Orthopaedic Trauma Institute, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Marta Linde-Medina

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  1. Marta Linde-Medina
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Correspondence to Marta Linde-Medina.

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Linde-Medina, M. A Taxonomy of Non-fitness. Biol Theory 12, 1–3 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-016-0255-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-016-0255-1

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