Chuck Grimes wrote:
>
>
> I think the trick is to de-tune, de-metaphorize. For example try to
> describe some attribute without using the word, adaptive. Since it is
> impossible for some common attribute to be non-adaptive, or else how
> would it exist,
This isn't true, Chuck. It is very easy for non-adaptive or even anti-adaptive traits to survive, because it isn't this trait or that trait that survives, but whole complex bundles of traits. Gould's hypothetical example is a brain trait that had adaptive use for a paleozoic fish, has survived ever since in various lineages through periods in which it had _no_ effect, adaptive or non-adaptive, and _now_, under modern condtions, has suddenly become destructive.
>From leafing through Gould I gather he discusses this at length, but I
would also highly recommend a book that can be read through in a sitting
or two:
Ian Tattersall, _The Monkey in the Mirror: Essays on the Science of What Makes Us Human_, Harcourt, 2002. Many of our traits, it seems, are _not_ adaptations but _exaptations_.
Carrol