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Nonadaptive explanation within the adaptationist research program
Abstract
The "adaptationist research program" has been faulted on occasion for permitting excessively ad hoc explanation, for being untestable, and for being unscientific. Various modes of explanation in non-adaptive terms have been offered as alternative and preferable research programs. The present work argues that non-adaptive explanation is not an alternative to adaptive explanation, but rather is part of the adaptationist research program, following as a corollary of sorts from the black box to translucid box transition of evolutionary theory. "Research programs" in general are not testable, and all of science incorporates high-level generalizations which are not testable in any straightforward manner. Among the roles which such generalizations may play in science are the provision of acceptable terms and relations to be incorporated into valid explanations (paradigms), or they may take the form of theoretical entities which are not themselves observable, but which allow the generation of testable implications which would not be possible without them (Watkins' Organic Fertility Requirement). The non-adaptationist research program is as untestable as the adaptationist program in these senses. Adaptive and non-adaptive modes of explanation seek to answer different questions, and for logical and epistemological reasons the adaptationist approach has priority. So-called "non-adaptive" explanations in terms of allometry and heterochrony in fact deal with adaptively neutral, proximate causal mechanisms of change. An attempt is made herein to synthesize the adaptive and non-adaptive approaches to explanation, showing how they address different but complementary questions. Ideally, the synthesis of the two approaches to explanation should result in a broader and more comprehensive evolutionary theory.
Subject Area
Paleontology|Philosophy
Recommended Citation
Wikander, Richard Lawrence, "Nonadaptive explanation within the adaptationist research program" (1991). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9120976.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9120976