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Evolutionary Psychology, Adaptation and Design

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Handbook of Evolutionary Thinking in the Sciences

Abstract

I argue that Evolutionary Psychologists’ notion of adaptationism is closest to what Peter Godfrey-Smith (2001) calls explanatory adaptationism and as a result, is not a good organizing principle for research in the biology of human behavior. I also argue that adopting an alternate notion of adaptationism presents much more explanatory resources to the biology of human behavior. I proceed by introducing Evolutionary Psychology and giving some examples of alternative approaches to the biological explanation of human behavior. Next I characterize adaptation and explain the range of biological phenomena that can count as adaptations. I go onto introduce the range of adaptationist views that have been distinguished by philosophers of biology and lay out explanatory adaptationism in detail.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    They go on to say that the further criticisms of Buller in their paper hold up whether or not we buy this distinction.

  2. 2.

    Machery further reinforced this point (Personal Communication).

  3. 3.

    Here I follow Buller’s (2005) account of the approach. The term “reverse engineering” was first used in an evolutionary context by Daniel Dennett (He explains and elaborates upon the concept in his 1995). Steven Pinker (1997) also champions the approach as do many in Evolutionary Psychology.

  4. 4.

    Tim Lewens (2009) distinguishes seven distinct adaptationist theses. He also uses the terminology “heuristic adaptationism” in explaining Godfrey-Smith’s notion of methodological adaptationism. Lewen’s account of methodological adaptationism differs from mine. For example, he maintains that Dennett is a methodological adaptationist “par excellence” but I agree with Godfrey-Smith’s characterization of Dennett as an explanatory adaptationist; Dennett is strongly invested in the idea that most, if not all, traits are adaptations.

  5. 5.

    Hagen makes another slip in the paper that is worth noting. He says in response to Gould and Lewontin’s criticism that adaptation is often invoked in situations where other explanations of the relevant biological feature would suffice that they “were apparently unaware that George Williams (1966) had already both discussed this problem in great depth and provided its solution: Adaptations will exhibit evidence of design” (Hagen, 2005, 149). As I pointed out above, this part of Gould and Lewontin’s criticism of adaptationism is simply a restatement of Williams’ own view. To make matters worse for Hagen, Gould and Lewontin’s paper was published in a special issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences (1979). This issue also contained papers by Maynard-Smith (475–488), Dawkins and Krebs (489–511) and G.C. Williams (567–580) among other leading evolutionary theorists. The papers were the conference proceedings of a conference on adaptation that all these biologists attended. Gould and Lewontin’s paper continues to be cited by biologists who discuss the concepts of adaptation and adaptationism.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Stephen M. Downes (Professor and Chairman)

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  1. Stephen M. Downes
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Correspondence to Stephen M. Downes .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Génétique Animale et Biologie Intégrative, INRA, UMR 1313, Jouy-en-Josas, France

    Thomas Heams

  2. Institut d’Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, CNRS/Université Paris I Sorbonne/ENS, Paris, France

    Philippe Huneman

  3. Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), Paris, France

    Guillaume Lecointre

  4. Éditions Matériologiques, Paris, France

    Marc Silberstein

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Downes, S.M. (2015). Evolutionary Psychology, Adaptation and Design. In: Heams, T., Huneman, P., Lecointre, G., Silberstein, M. (eds) Handbook of Evolutionary Thinking in the Sciences. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9014-7_31

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