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Modest adaptationism: Muddling through cognition and language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2003

Scott Atran
Scott Atran
Affiliation:
CNRS – Institut Jean Nicod, 75007 Paris, France; ISR – University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248 [email protected]
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Abstract

Strong adaptationists would explain complex organic designs as specific adaptations to particular ancestral environments. Weak adaptationists don't assume that complex organic functioning represents evolutionary design in the sense of niche-specific adaptation. For some domain-specific competencies (folkbiology) strong adaptationism is useful, not necessary. With group-level belief systems (religion), strong adaptationism can become spurious pseudo-adaptationism. In other cases (language), weak adaptationism proves productive.

Type
Brief Report
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , August 2002 , pp. 504 - 506
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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