huckturner{at}hotmail.com (Huck Turner) wrote in
news:ce5t02$21v6$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org: 

> "Peter F."  wrote in message
> news:... 
>> "Huck Turner"  wrote in message
>> news:cdm2fs$2qr9$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
>> > I wouldn't say that intelligence is limited to functions that are
>> > adaptive because many aspects of intelligence have a pretty tenuous
>> > relationship to survival (musical ability, the ability to ponder
>> > abstract problems like our origins and the nature of the universe,
>> > perform well in trivia quizzes, do crosswords, etc.).
>> 
>> What many people seem to think are functural/behavioural
"spandrels"
>> ("adaptive advantage neutral" by-products of natural selection)
>> deserve in many cases to be re-examined for the possibility that they
>> instead are far better explained, and categorized, as products of the
>> phylogenetic principle that generated the 'attractor' towards
>> AEVASIVE genophenotypes of animal evolution.
>>
>> The most outstanding example (extreme manifestation) of AEVASIVE
>> abilities are to be found amongst the traits of the human
>> genophenotype. 
> 
> Spandrels are products of natural selection (albeit by-products) so I
> agree with you that to be informative, we should not be content to
> label something a 'spandrel'; we should also ask what selective
> influences it is a by-product of. Gould sold spandrels (and
> exaptations) as if they were somehow not products of natural
> selection, but they are. In my opinion, there are still lessons to be
> drawn from Gould's comments though. The lesson from Gould and
> Lewontin's (1979) 'spandrel' paper is that we shouldn't assume that
> every feature of an organism played a causal role in its selection,
> while the lesson from Gould and Vrba's (1981) 'exaptation' paper is
> that we shouldn't assume that a trait evolved under selection for the
> advantages it presently confers.

I would appreciate it if you could explain the difference between 
spandrels, exaptatations, and pre-adaptations. In so far as I can see, 
they are all the same thing. While I like the term exaptation much better 
than the rather unfortunate term pre-adaptation, I don't see any 
difference in the basic concept. Spandrels may actually be different, but 
the difference is subtle and is worth scrutiny. 


Yours,

Bill Morse
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