Abstract
The concept of preadaptation, though useful, continues to trouble evolutionary scientists. Usually, it is treated as if it were really adaptation, prompting such diverse theorists as Gould and Vrba, and Dennett to suggest its removal from evolutionary theory altogether. In this paper, I argue that the as-if sense is ill-founded, and that the sense of preadaptation as a process may be defended as unequivocal and generally useful in evolutionary explanations, even in such problem areas as human evolution.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Armstrong, D.F., Stokoe, W.C. and Wilcox, S.E.: 1995, Gesture and the Nature of Language, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Borgia, G.: 1995, ‘Why Do Bowerbirds Build Bowers?’, American Scientist 83(6), 542–547.
Calvin, W.H.: 1991, The Ascent of Mind: Ice Age Climates and the Evolution of Intelligence, Bantam Books, New York.
Cohen, A.H.: 1988, ‘Evolution of the Vertebrate Central Pattern Generator for Locomotion’, in A.H. Cohen, S. Rossignol and S. Grillner (eds.), Neural Control of Rhythmic Movements in Vertebrates, Wiley & Sons, Toronto, pp. 129–166.
Cohen, A.H.: 1992, ‘The Role of Heterarchical Control in the Evolution of Central Pattern Generators’, Brain, Behavior and Evolution 40(2–3), 112–124.
Dalla Chiara, M.L., Doets, K., Mundici, D. and van Benthem, J. (eds): 1997, Logic and Scientific Methods, Vol. 259 of Synthese Library, Kluwer, Dordrecht. Volume One of the Tenth International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Florence, August 1995.
Dennett, D.C.: 1995, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, Simon & Shuster, New York.
Diamond, J.: 1992, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal, HarperCollins Publishers, New York.
Donald, M.: 1991, Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Gould, S.J.: 1983, Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, W.W. Norton & Co., New York.
Gould, S.J.: 1989, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, W. W. Norton & Co., New York.
Gould, S.J. and Vrba, E.S.: 1982, ‘Exaptation — A Missing Term in the Science of Form’, Paleobiology 8(1), 4–15.
Griffin, D.R.: 1992, Animal Minds, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Griffiths, P.: 1992, ‘Adaptive Explanation and the Concept of a Vestige’, in P. Griffiths (ed.), Trees of Life: Essays in Philosophy of Biology, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 111–132.
Jerison, H.J.: 1973, Evolution of the Brain and Intelligence, Academic Press, New York.
Jerison, H.J.: 1985, ‘Animal Intelligence as Encephalization’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 308(1135), 21–35.
Kermack, D.M. and Kermack, K.A.: 1984, The Evolution of Mammalian Characters, Croom Helm, London.
Kitchener, A.C.: 1991, ‘The Evolution and Mechanical Design of Horns and Antlers’, in J.M.V. Rayner and R.J. Wootton (eds.), Biomechanics in Evolution of, Vol. 36 of Society for Experimental Biology Seminars, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 229–266.
Kitcher, P. and Salmon, W.: 1989, Scientific Explanation, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
Kramer, M.G. and Marden, J.H.: 1997, ‘Almost Airborne’, Nature 385, 403–404.
Kusimierski, R., Borgia, G., Crozier, R.H. and Chan, B.H.Y.: 1993, 'Molecular Information on Bowerbird Phylogeny and the Evolution of Exaggerated Male Characteristics, Journal of Evolutionary Biology 6, 737–750.
Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M.: 1980, Metaphors We Live by, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Langer, S.K.: 1972, Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling, Vol. II, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Lieberman, P.: 1991, Uniquely Human: The Evolution of Speech, Thought, and Selfless Behavior, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
MacFadden, B.J.: 1992, Fossil Horses: Systematics, Paleobiology, and Evolution of the Family Equidae, Cambridge University Press, New York.
Marden, J.H.: 1995, ‘How Insects Learned to Fly’, The Sciences 35(6), 26–30.
Mayr, E.: 1963, Animal Species and Evolution, Belknap Press, Cambridge.
McGrew, W.C.: 1992, Chimpanzee Material Culture: Implications for Human Evolution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Prothero, D.R. and Schoch, R.M. (eds): 1989, The Evolution of Perissodactyls, Oxford University Press, New York.
Rayner, J.M.V. and Wootton, R.J. (eds): 1991, Biomechanics in Evolution, Vol. 36 of Society for Experimental Biology Seminars, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Romer, A.S.: 1959, The Vertebrate Story, University of Chicago Press, London. Fourth edition of Man and the Vertebrates, 1933.
Schick, K.D. and Toth, N.: 1993, Making Silent Stones Speak: Human Evolution and the Dawn of Technology, Touchstone, New York.
Schmidt-Nielsen, K.: 1984, Scaling: Why is Animal Size so Important?, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Smith, F.H. and Spencer, F. (eds): 1984, The Origins of Modern Humans: A World Survey of the Fossil Evidence, A. R. Liss, New York.
Sober, E.: 1992, ‘Models of Cultural Evolution’, in P. Griffiths (ed.), Trees of Life: Essays in Philosophy of Biology, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp. 17–39.
Tattersall, I.: 1995, The Fossil Trail: How We Know What We Think We Know about Human Evolution, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Thagard, P.: 1988, Computational Philosophy of Science, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Thagard, P. and Shelley, C.: 1997, ‘Abductive Reasoning: Logic, Visual Thinking, and Coherence’, in M.L. Dalla Chiara et al. (eds.), Logic and Scientific Methods, Vol. 259 of Synthese Library, Kluwer Academic Publisher, Dordrecht, pp. 413–427.
Thomason, J.J.: 1986, ‘The Functional Morphology of the Manus in the Tridactyl Equids Merychippus and Mesohippus: Paleontological Inferences from Neontological Models’, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 6(2), 143–161.
Thomason, J.J.: 1991, ‘Functional Interpretation of Locomotory Adaptations during Equid Evolution’, in J.M.V. Rayner and R.J. Wootton (eds.), Biomechanics in Evolution, Vol 36 of Society for Experimental Biology Seminars, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 213–228.
Trinkaus, E. and Shipman, P.: 1993, The Neandertals: Changing the Image of Mankind, Knopf, New York.
Wolpoff, M.H., Liu, X. and Thorne, A.G.: 1984, Modern Homo Sapiens Origins: A General Theory of Hominid Evolution Involving Evidence from East Asia, in F.H. Smith and F. Spencer (eds.), The Origins of Modern Humans: A World Survey of the Fossil Evidence, A. R. Liss, New York, pp. 411–483.
Zuckerkandl, E.: 1994, ‘Molecular Pathways to Parallel Evolution: I. Gene Nexuses and their Morphological Correlates’, Journal of Molecular Evolution 39(6), 661–678.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shelley, C. Preadaptation and the Explanation of Human Evolution. Biology & Philosophy 14, 65–82 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006539827648
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006539827648