Abstract
In “Spandrels,” Gould and Lewontin criticized what they took to be an all-too-common conviction, namely, that adaptation to current environments determines organic form. They stressed instead the importance of history. In this paper, we elaborate upon their concerns by appealing to other writings in which those issues are treated in greater detail. Gould and Lewontin’s combined emphasis on history was three-fold. First, evolution by natural selection does not start from scratch, but always refashions preexisting forms. Second, preexisting forms are refashioned by the selection of whatever mutational variations happen to arise: the historical order of mutations needs to be taken into account. Third, the order of environments and selection pressures also needs to be taken into account.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Patrick Forber for a very careful reading and extensive comments. And thanks also to Richard Lewontin for clarifying some of the issues discussed here.
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Beatty, J., Desjardins, E.C. Natural selection and history. Biol Philos 24, 231–246 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-008-9149-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-008-9149-3