Adaptationalist imperatives and panglossian paradigms

Alexander Rosenberg

pp. 161-179

in: James H. Fetzer (ed), Sociobiology and epistemology, Berlin, Springer, 1985

Abstract

This paper defends adaptationalist programs against criticisms offered in R. Lewontin and S. J. Gould, "The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm." It argues that defects Lewontin and Gould allege are essential features of a research program motivated by any theory which has the extremal character characteristic of the theory of natural selection, it suggests that the constraints on evolution to which Lewontin and Gould look as alteratives to adaptational mechanisms must themselves be adaptationally explained, unless these constraints are altogether non-biological. Gould's notion of "exaptation" is shown to be consonant with and to provide the vehicle for the adaptational treatment of the developmental results of such constraints. To avoid "Panglossianism", adaptationalists need only be sophisticated in what they identify as phenotypes subject to selection.