tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post1643715140296689968..comments2024-03-27T14:50:47.345-04:00Comments on <center>Sandwalk</center>: A Critique of the Adaptationist ProgrammeLarry Moranhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-4048528018923354872009-12-11T20:48:19.425-05:002009-12-11T20:48:19.425-05:00We fault the adaptationist programme for its failu...<i>We fault the adaptationist programme for its failure to distinguish current utility from reasons for origin (male tyrannosaurs may have used their diminutive front legs to titillate female partners, but this will not explain why they got so small); for its unwillingness to consider alternatives to adaptive stories; for its reliance upon plausibility alone as a criterion for accepting speculative tales; and for its failure to consider adequately such competing themes as random fixation of alleles, production of non-adaptive structures by developmental correlation with selected features (allometry, pleiotropy, material compensation, mechanically forced correlation), the separability of adaptation and selection, multiple adaptive peaks, and current utility as an epiphenomenon of non-adaptive structures.</i> <br /><br />Gee that "programme" sounds pretty bad. I'll bet L & G won the straw man competition that year. <br /><br />Pete DunkelbergAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-23512494069645490602009-12-07T18:32:07.595-05:002009-12-07T18:32:07.595-05:00Darwin may have been a "pluralist," but ...Darwin may have been a "pluralist," but he wasn't talking about drift, of course. He probably was referring to something really wrong like use & disuse of parts.Sven DIMilonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-29989799113788628482009-12-02T15:50:09.525-05:002009-12-02T15:50:09.525-05:00If you haven't read this paper by now then dow...<i>If you haven't read this paper by now then download it and read it carefully. It's the most important paper to read if you are interested in evolution.</i><br /><br />Larry, thanks for linking to this. Definitely a keeper.John Farrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18280296574996987228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-29806084511787652372009-12-01T23:06:05.701-05:002009-12-01T23:06:05.701-05:00Jerry Coyne also posted this on his blog Why Evolu...Jerry Coyne also posted this on his blog Why Evolution is True. Richard Dawkins left an interesting comment: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/its-a-spandrel-sort-of/#comment-15298 . Coyne provides a link to the paper Dawkins discusses directly beneath his comment.<br /><br />I was wondering what you thought of this as I've never seen it discussed anywhere, and Coyne apparentely hadn't either.Kele Cablenoreply@blogger.com