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.
Carrol
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Yeah, I am begining to remember now that you mention it.
So in what sense was such a trait adaptive? In another section, Gould goes on about changing the base definitions from objective and fixed to operational and functional (I seem to remember), which thus loosens the boundary, giving such concepts a transcendal and interpretative aspect. So then in what sense are such ideas considered axiomatic or foundational?
Gotta get back to fixing chairs. Later tonight...
Chuck Grimes