Adaptation
Concept · Biology, stage 1: Learn the vocabulary
An adaptation is a trait that exists in its current form because natural selection favoured it for the function it now performs. The word names both the process and its products, which is a standing source of confusion. Not every useful trait is an adaptation: some are byproducts of other traits, some are historical accidents, and some were selected for one function and later co-opted for another.
Why it matters
Deciding when a trait is an adaptation is the point where evolutionary explanation is easiest to get wrong, because a plausible story about what a trait is good for is not evidence that selection produced it.
Part of
Sources
- Adaptation Wikipedia
- Adaptationism Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyOn the objection that adaptive explanations are told too freely, and what would count as testing one.
- Understanding Evolution UC Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley
