Exaptation, Adaptation, and Evolutionary Psychology
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1 "Principles of Phylogenetics: Ecology
"PRINCIPLES OF PHYLOGENETICS: ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION" Integrative Biology 200 Spring 2016 University of California, Berkeley D.D. Ackerly March 7, 2016. Phylogenetics and Adaptation What is to be explained? • What is the evolutionary history of trait x that we see in a lineage (homology) or multiple lineages (homoplasy) - adaptations as states • Is natural selection the primary evolutionary process leading to the ‘fit’ of organisms to their environment? • Why are some traits more prevalent (occur in more species): number of origins vs. trait- dependent diversification rates (speciation – extinction) Some high points in the history of the adaptation debate: 1950s • Modern Synthesis of Genetics (Dobzhansky), Paleontology (Simpson) and Systematics (Mayr, Grant) 1960s • Rise of evolutionary ecology – synthesis of ecology with strong adaptationism via optimality theory, with little to no history; leads to Sociobiology in the 70s • Appearance of cladistics (Hennig) 1972 • Eldredge and Gould – punctuated equilibrium – argue that Modern Synthesis can’t explain pervasive observation of stasis in fossil record; Gould focuses on development and constraint as explanations, Eldredge more on ecology and importance of migration to minimize selective pressure 1979 • Gould and Lewontin – Spandrels – general critique of adaptationist program and call for rigorous hypothesis testing of alternatives for the ‘fit’ between organism and environment 1980’s • Debate on whether macroevolution can be explained by microevolutionary processes • Comparative methods -
Testing Darwin's Hypothesis About The
vol. 193, no. 2 the american naturalist february 2019 Natural History Note Testing Darwin’s Hypothesis about the Wonderful Venus Flytrap: Marginal Spikes Form a “Horrid q1 Prison” for Moderate-Sized Insect Prey Alexander L. Davis,1 Matthew H. Babb,1 Matthew C. Lowe,1 Adam T. Yeh,1 Brandon T. Lee,1 and Christopher H. Martin1,2,* 1. Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599; 2. Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 Submitted May 8, 2018; Accepted September 24, 2018; Electronically published Month XX, 2018 Dryad data: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.h8401kn. abstract: Botanical carnivory is a novel feeding strategy associated providing new ecological opportunities (Wainwright et al. with numerous physiological and morphological adaptations. How- 2012; Maia et al. 2013; Martin and Wainwright 2013; Stroud ever, the benefits of these novel carnivorous traits are rarely tested. and Losos 2016). Despite the importance of these traits, our We used field observations, lab experiments, and a seminatural ex- understanding of the adaptive value of novel structures is of- periment to test prey capture function of the marginal spikes on snap ten assumed and rarely directly tested. Frequently, this is be- traps of the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula). Our field and labora- cause it is difficult or impossible to manipulate the trait with- fi tory results suggested inef cient capture success: fewer than one in four out impairing organismal function in an unintended way; prey encounters led to prey capture. Removing the marginal spikes de- creased the rate of prey capture success for moderate-sized cricket prey however, many carnivorous plant traits do not present this by 90%, but this effect disappeared for larger prey. -
Past and Present Environments
Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 2011, 275-278 DOI: 10.1556/JEP.9.2011.3.5 PAST AND PRESENT ENVIRONMENTS A review of Decision Making: Towards an Evolutionary Psychology of Rationality, by Mauro Maldonato. Sussex Academic Press (2010), 121 pages, $32.50. ISBN: 978-1-84519-421-5 (paperback) 1 2 CHELSEA ROSS AND ANDREAS WILKE Department of Psychology, Clarkson University In his book, Maldonato provides a thoughtful look at how early scholars viewed de- cision-making and rationality. He takes the reader on an illustrative journey through the historic passages of decision-making all the way to modern notions of a more limited rationality and how humans can make choices under risk and uncertainty. He discusses Kahneman and Tversky’s seminal work on heuristics and biases— “short cuts” that rely on little information and modest cognitive resources that sometimes lead to persistent failures, but usually allow the decision-maker to make fast and fairly reliable choices. Herbert Simon and Gerd Gigerenzer’s work on bounded rationality is discussed, with respect to its influence on decision-making research in economics and psychology. For Maldonato, the principle of bounded ra- tionality—that organisms have limited resources, such as time, information, and cognitive capacity with which to find solutions to the problems they face—is a key insight to understanding the evolution of decision-making. Maldonato proposes that evolutionary pressures urged the human mind to adopt a primitive decision-making process. For the purpose of survival, the majority of human choices had to be made by means of simple and fast decision strategies, because the decision-making system developed under general human cognitive limitations and from environmental pressures that selected for decision strategies suited for the harsh ancestral living environments as well as the resources at hand. -
Information Systems Theorizing Based on Evolutionary Psychology: an Interdisciplinary Review and Theory Integration Framework1
Kock/IS Theorizing Based on Evolutionary Psychology THEORY AND REVIEW INFORMATION SYSTEMS THEORIZING BASED ON EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEW AND THEORY INTEGRATION FRAMEWORK1 By: Ned Kock on one evolutionary information systems theory—media Division of International Business and Technology naturalness theory—previously developed as an alternative to Studies media richness theory, and one non-evolutionary information Texas A&M International University systems theory, channel expansion theory. 5201 University Boulevard Laredo, TX 78041 Keywords: Information systems, evolutionary psychology, U.S.A. theory development, media richness theory, media naturalness [email protected] theory, channel expansion theory Abstract Introduction Evolutionary psychology holds great promise as one of the possible pillars on which information systems theorizing can While information systems as a distinct area of research has take place. Arguably, evolutionary psychology can provide the potential to be a reference for other disciplines, it is the key to many counterintuitive predictions of behavior reasonable to argue that information systems theorizing can toward technology, because many of the evolved instincts that benefit from fresh new insights from other fields of inquiry, influence our behavior are below our level of conscious which may in turn enhance even more the reference potential awareness; often those instincts lead to behavioral responses of information systems (Baskerville and Myers 2002). After that are not self-evident. This paper provides a discussion of all, to be influential in other disciplines, information systems information systems theorizing based on evolutionary psych- research should address problems that are perceived as rele- ology, centered on key human evolution and evolutionary vant by scholars in those disciplines and in ways that are genetics concepts and notions. -
Exapting Exaptation
Spotlight Exapting exaptation 1 2 3 3 Greger Larson , Philip A. Stephens , Jamshid J. Tehrani , and Robert H. Layton 1 Durham Evolution and Ancient DNA, Department of Archaeology, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK 2 School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK 3 Department of Anthropology, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK The term exaptation was introduced to encourage biol- As a result, all adaptations can also be said to be exapta- ogists to consider alternatives to adaptation to explain tions, thus rendering the term redundant [4]. the origins of traits. Here, we discuss why exaptation has proved more successful in technological than biological Technology and the exaptation of exaptation contexts, and propose a revised definition of exaptation Despite failing to catch on in evolutionary biology, exapta- applicable to both genetic and cultural evolution. tion has been adopted with considerable success in studies of the history of technology [5]. Technological innovations frequently involve the use of a process or artefact in a new The rise and fall of biological exaptation context [6]. A classic example is microwave radiation, Last year marked a decade since the death of Stephen Jay which was originally used in the radar magnetron to Gould, and 30 years since the publication of one of his most intercept and reflect off target objects, and was subse- provocative challenges to orthodox evolutionary theory quently exapted as a means to heat food. Similarly, tech- [1,2]. Concerned about a perceived lack of rigour, Gould, nologies that were initially developed as part of NASA’s together with Elizabeth Vrba, introduced a vocabulary space research program were later exploited for new com- intended to undermine the primacy of adaptation for mercial uses. -
The Spandrels of Self-Deception: Prospects for a Biological Theory of a Mental Phenomenon
The Spandrels of Self-Deception: Prospects for a Biological Theory of a Mental Phenomenon D. S. Neil Van Leeuwen Self-deception is so undeniable a fact of human life that if anyone tried to deny its existence, the proper response would be to accuse this person of it. —Allen Wood1 1. Introduction to the Problems Even prior to a characterization of self-deception, it’s easy to see that it’s widespread. This is puzzling, because self-deception seems paradoxical. Here are three apparent problems. First, self-deception seems to involve a conceptual contradiction; in order to deceive, one must believe the contrary of the deception one is perpetrating, but if one believes the contrary, it seems impossible for that very self to believe the deception.2 Second, a view of the mind has become widely accepted that makes rationality constitutive and exhaustive of the mental; this is the interpretive view of the mental put forth by Donald Davidson and followers.3 According to this view, the idea of attributing irrational beliefs to agents makes little sense, for we cannot make sense of what someone’s beliefs are unless they are rational. But self-deception is highly irrational.4 Third, a brief survey of other cognitive mechanisms (such as vision) reveals that most are well suited for giving us reliable information about ourselves and our environment. Self- deception, however, undermines knowledge of ourselves and the world. If having good information brings fitness benefits to organisms, how is it that self-deception was not weeded out by natural selection? Otherwise put, why does self-deception exist? (For convenience, I shall refer to these as puzzles 1, 2, and 3.) Puzzles such as these make self-deception an intriguing explanatory target. -
Evolution # 6 Tempoandmode
Bio 1B Lecture Outline (please print and bring along) Fall, 2008 B.D. Mishler, Dept. of Integrative Biology 2-6810, [email protected] Evolution lecture #6 -- Tempo and Mode in Macroevolution -- Nov. 14th, 2008 Reading: pp. 521-531 (ch. 25) 8th ed. pp. 480-488 (ch. 24) 7th ed. • Summary of topics • Define and contrast adaptation and exaptation • Give examples of how adaptive radiations lead to diversity within an evolutionary lineage • Give examples of how convergent evolution shows the action of selection on organisms that are not closely related but have a shared way of life • Contrast punctuated equilibria and gradualism • Describe the features of developmental changes that can lead to evolution ("evo-devo") • Define macroevolution • Adaptation Adaptation: Based on the observation that organism matches environment closely. Darwin & many Darwinians thought that all structures must be adaptive for something. But, this has come under severe challenge in recent years. Not all structures and functions are adaptive. Some matches between organism and environment are accidental, or the causality is reverse (i.e., the structure came first, function much later). • By definition, an adaptation in a formal sense requires fulfillment of four different tests: Engineering. Structure must indeed function in hypothesized sense. Heritability. Differences between organisms must be passed on to offspring. Natural Selection. Difference in fitness must occur because of differences in the hypothesized adaptation. Phylogeny. Hypothesized adaptive state must have evolved in the context of the hypothesized cause. Think in terms of problem (e.g., environmental change) and solution (adaptation). Requires correct phylogenetic polarity (i.e., correct sequence of events on a cladogram). -
Evolutionary Genetics
Evolutionary Genetics Ruben C. Arslan & Lars Penke Institute of Psychology Georg August University Göttingen Forthcoming in D. M. Buss (Ed.), Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley. September 17, 2014 Corresponding author: Ruben C. Arslan Georg August University Göttingen Biological Personality Psychology and Psychological Assessment Georg Elias Müller Institute of Psychology Goßlerstr. 14 37073 Göttingen, Germany Tel.: +49 551 3920704 Email: [email protected] 1 Introduction When Charles Darwin developed the theory of evolution, he knew nothing about genetics. Hence, one of its biggest weaknesses was that Darwin had to base it on crude ideas of inheritance. Around the same time, Gregor Mendel discovered the laws of inheritance, but the scientific community initially failed to appreciate his work’s importance. It was only in the 1930’s that Dobzhansky, Fisher, Haldane, Wright, Mayr and others unified genetics and the theory of evolution in the ‘modern synthesis’. Still, the modern synthesis was built on a basic understanding of genetics, with genes merely being particulate inherited information. The basics of molecular genetics, like the structure of DNA, were not discovered until the 1950’s. When modern evolutionary psychology emerged from ethology and sociobiology in the late 1980’s, it had a strong emphasis on human universals, borne from both the assumption that complex adaptations are monomorphic (or sexually dimorphic) and have to go back to at least the last common ancestor of all humans, and the methodological proximity to experimental cognitive psychology, which tends to treat individual differences as statistical noise. As a consequence, genetic differences between people were marginalized in evolutionary psychology (Tooby & Cosmides, 1990). -
The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: a Critique of the Adaptationist Programme
The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme. (Excerpted1 by W. M. Schaffer) Stephen Jay Gould and Richard C. Lewontin. 1979. Proc. Roy. Soc. London, Ser. B, 505: 581-598. An adaptationist programme has dominated evolutionary thought in England and the United States during the past forty years. It is based on faith in the power of natural selection as an optimizing agent. It proceeds by breaking an organism into unitary "traits" and proposing an adaptive story for each considered separately. Trade-offs among competing selective demands exert the only brake upon perfection; non-optimality is thereby rendered as a result of adaptation as well. We criticize this approach and attempt to reassert a competing notion (long popular in continental Europe) that organisms must be analyzed as integrated wholes, with Baupläne[2] so constrained by phyletic heritage, pathways of development, and general architecture that the constraints them- selves become more interesting and more important in delimiting pathways of change than the selective force that may mediate change when it occurs. We fault the adaptationist programme for its failure to distinguish current utility from reasons for origin (male tyrannosaurs may have used their diminutive front legs to titillate female partners, but this will not explain why they got so small); for its unwillingness to consider alternatives to adaptive stories; for its reliance upon plau- sibility alone as a criterion for accepting speculative tales; and for its failure to consider adequately such competing themes as random fixation of alleles, production of non-adaptive structures by developmental correlation with selected features … , the separability of adaptation and selection, multiple adaptive peaks, and current utility as an epiphenomenon of nonadaptive structures. -
Exaptation, Grammaticalization, and Reanalysis
Heiko Narrog Tohoku University Exaptation, Grammaticalization, and Reanalysis Abstract The goal of this paper is to argue that exaptation, as introduced into the study of language change by Lass (1990, 1997), in specific functional domains, is a limited alternative to grammaticalization. Exaptation, similarly to grammaticalization, leads to the formation of grammatical elements. Like grammaticalization, exaptation is based on the mechanism of reanalysis. It decisively differs from grammaticalization, however, as it implies change in the opposite direction, namely from material absorbed in the lexicon back to grammatical material. Two sets of data are presented as evidence for the replicability of this process. One involves the occurrence of exaptation across languages in a specific semantic domain, namely, the evolution of morphological causatives out of lexical verb patterns. The other data pertain to recurrent processes of exaptation in one language, namely in Japanese, where exaptation figures in the development of various morphological categories. In all cases of exaptation, reanalysis is crucially involved. This serves to show that reanalysis may be more fundamental to grammatical change than both grammaticalization and exaptation. Furthermore, it allows for change both with the usual directionality of grammaticalization and against it. 1. Introduction Even detractors of grammaticalization theory do not seriously challenge the fact that in the majority of cases the morphosyntactic and semantic development of grammatical material follows the paths outlined in the standard literature on grammaticalization. The two following California Linguistic Notes Volume XXXII No. 1 Winter, 2007 2 issues, however, potentially pose a critical challenge to the validity of the theory. First, there is the question of the theoretical status of grammaticalization as a coherent and unique concept. -
Exaptation-A Missing Term in the Science of Form Author(S): Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth S
Paleontological Society Exaptation-A Missing Term in the Science of Form Author(s): Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth S. Vrba Reviewed work(s): Source: Paleobiology, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Winter, 1982), pp. 4-15 Published by: Paleontological Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2400563 . Accessed: 27/08/2012 17:43 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Paleontological Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Paleobiology. http://www.jstor.org Paleobiology,8(1), 1982, pp. 4-15 Exaptation-a missing term in the science of form StephenJay Gould and Elisabeth S. Vrba* Abstract.-Adaptationhas been definedand recognizedby two differentcriteria: historical genesis (fea- turesbuilt by naturalselection for their present role) and currentutility (features now enhancingfitness no matterhow theyarose). Biologistshave oftenfailed to recognizethe potentialconfusion between these differentdefinitions because we have tendedto view naturalselection as so dominantamong evolutionary mechanismsthat historical process and currentproduct become one. Yet if manyfeatures of organisms are non-adapted,but available foruseful cooptation in descendants,then an importantconcept has no name in our lexicon (and unnamed ideas generallyremain unconsidered):features that now enhance fitnessbut were not built by naturalselection for their current role. -
Evolutionary Psychology in the Service of Moral Psychology: a Possible Future for Ethics William S
Skidmore College Creative Matter Philosophy Faculty Scholarship Philosophy Department 2011 Evolutionary Psychology in the Service of Moral Psychology: A Possible Future for Ethics William S. Lewis Skidmore College Follow this and additional works at: https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/phil_rel_fac_schol Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Lewis, W. S. (2011). Evolutionary Psychology in the Service of Moral Philosophy: A Possible Future for Ethics?. Journal Of Speculative Philosophy, 25(1), 48-63. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Philosophy Department at Creative Matter. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Creative Matter. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Evolutionary Psychology in the Service of Moral Philosophy, A Possible Future for Ethics? William S. Lewis Skidmore College Draft of “Evolutionary Psychology in the Service of Moral Psychology: A Possible Future for Ethics.” Journal of Speculative Philosophy Vol. 25, No. 1 (2011): 48-63. “Someone may ask, “What is the difference, then, between moral philosophy and moral psychology?” The answer may be that there is no interesting difference and that the issue is of interest only to university administrators.”1 In “The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life (1891),” William James provides a rough taxonomy of the state of ethical philosophy at the time that he is writing. Making a division between psychological approaches that identify the good with the feeling of pleasure derived by a naturally evolved organism and metaphysical approaches which hold that the good is conceptual, James argues that both are equally goods and that they each imply similar obligation.