adaptationism

Dennett thinks adaptationism is, in fact, the best way of uncovering constraints.

But adaptationism remains the core of biological thinking."

Valignano formed a basic strategy for Catholic proselytism, which is usually called "adaptationism".

Fodor suggests that "that serious alternatives to adaptationism have begun to emerge", and offers evolutionary developmental theory ('evo-devo') as one such alternative.

A functional characteristic is known as an adaptation, and the research strategy for investigating whether a character is adaptive is known as adaptationism.

Valignano's adaptationism attempted to avoid cultural frictions by covering the gap between certain Japanese customs and Roman Catholic values.

And he takes issue, as well, with strict adaptationism, a brand of Neo-Darwinism that would locate "all evolutionary mechanics in the struggle among organisms for reproductive success."

(edited with Steven Orzack) Adaptationism and Optimality, Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Gould also called the claims of Selfish Gene "strict adaptationism", "ultra-Darwinism", and "Darwinian fundamentalism", describing them as excessively "reductionist".

Related to the engineering concept of optimization, the next chapter deals with adaptationism, which Dennett endorses, calling Gould and Lewontin's "refutation" of it an illusion.

Instead, they sweep the difficulties under the rug of "adaptationism," the notion that everything about an animal's body and behavior has been honed to enhance its "fitness" or chance of passing on genes.

In chapter 6, Sterelny notes that "despite the heat of some recent rhetoric, the same is true of the role of selection in generating evolutionary change", (p. 67) and naive adaptationism.

In Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Dennett showed himself even more willing than Dawkins to defend adaptationism in print, devoting an entire chapter to a criticism of the ideas of Gould.

However, the increased focus on genes did not mean a focus on molecular evolution; in fact, the adaptationism promoted by Williams and other evolutionary theories further marginalized the apparently non-adaptive changes studied by molecular evolutionists.

Dennett states that Fodor's discussion of Gould and Lewontin's spandrel argument misrepresents that argument, stating "that far from suggesting an alternative to adaptationism, the very concept of a spandrel depends on there being adaptations".

The gene-centered view of evolution rose to prominence in the 1960s, followed by the neutral theory of molecular evolution, sparking debates over adaptationism, the units of selection, and the relative importance of genetic drift versus natural selection.

Lewontin has claimed that his more general, technical criticism of adaptationism grew out of his recognition that the fallacies of sociobiology reflect fundamentally flawed assumptions of adaptiveness of all traits in much of the modern evolutionary synthesis.

"Evolution," he writes, "is the quintessential science of history, and the hold of history lies exposed in myriad imperfections and compromises (pandas' thumbs) featured by all organisms as legacies of their different pasts - while Panglossian adaptationism makes history irrelevant."

(p. 390) This preference for adaptive over inadaptive forces led Stephen Jay Gould to call attention to the "hardening of the Modern Synthesis", a trend in the 1950s where adaptationism took precedence over the pluralism of mechanisms common in the 1930s and 40s.

The tenth chapter, entitled "Bully for Brontosaurus", is an extended critique of Stephen Jay Gould, who Dennett feels has created a distorted view of evolution with his popular writings; his "self-styled revolutions" against adaptationism, gradualism and other orthodox Darwinism all being false alarms.

Conceptually, it argued that the theory of natural selection contains an equivocation, as to whether selection acts upon individuals or on traits, and that to juxtapose both "depends on whether adaptationism is able to provide the required notion of 'selection for'", and that adaptionism fails to meet this burden.

The possible origin of higher organisms through endosymbiosis, and contrasting approaches to molecular evolution in the gene-centered view (which held selection as the predominant cause of evolution) and the neutral theory (which made genetic drift a key factor) spawned perennial debates over the proper balance of adaptationism and contingency in evolutionary theory.