The Great Exaptation. Around the fundamental idea of evolutionary psychology

The subject of this article is to study the critique of the adaptationist programme in the evolutionary psychology. I focus on the issue how the notions of “spandrel” and “exaptation”, first introduced to evolutionary biology by S. J. Gould, R. Lewontin and E. Vrba, were then applied to the field of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEcological questions Vol. 13; no. 1; pp. 89 - 94
Main Author Reuter, Magdalena
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Toruń Versita 01.12.2010
Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu
Subjects
adaptationist programme
cognitive processes
evolution of human mind
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Summary:The subject of this article is to study the critique of the adaptationist programme in the evolutionary psychology. I focus on the issue how the notions of “spandrel” and “exaptation”, first introduced to evolutionary biology by S. J. Gould, R. Lewontin and E. Vrba, were then applied to the field of evolutionary psychology and to more broadly evolution of human cognitive processes. My aim is to show, that these terms are differently applied to various kinds of investigations in the field of the evolution of human mind. I show that not only the orginal definitional issues are problematic but also the application of these terms to evolution of human mind can be confusing. I try to put the main issues in order on that matter and propose the solutions to these confusions. I propose the methodological assumptions that should be accepted to the theory of spandrels and exaptations.
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ISSN:1644-7298
2083-5469
DOI:10.2478/v10090-011-0050-3