How we have adapted to become what we are

One must not get overly zealous about theories, none the less, the following may be of interest to the blog reader

Elliott Sober defines an adaptation:

 “characteristic c is an adaptation for doing task t in a population if and only if members of the population now have c because, ancestrally, there was selection for having c and c conferred a fitness advantage because it performed task t” 

A sea turtles forelegs are useful for digging in the sand to bury eggs but they are not adaptations for nest building (Sober 2000, 85). Also, traits can be adaptations without being currently adaptive for a given organism.

 

 

 

What is important to note about research guided by theoretical tenets above is that all behaviour is best explained in terms of underlying psychological mechanisms that are adaptations for solving a particular set of problems that humans faced at one time in our ancestry.

A  key transitional premise is that minds are a kind of biological system upon which natural selection acts.

 Our immune system is a domain general system in that it allows the body to respond to a wide variety of pathogens