Nine variations and a coda on the theme of an evolutionary definition of dysfunction.

Nine variations on the theme of J. C. Wakefield's (1999) evolutionary definition of dysfunction show that the concept is not, as he claims, purely causal. It depends also on a teleological element of meaning introduced, in Wakefield's formulation, through an equivocation on the sense in which natural selection explains biological forms. The corollary (presented here briefly as a coda to the theme and variations) is that Wakefield's definition is not, as he also claims, value free. However, contra S. O. Lilienfeld and L. Marino (1995), this does not place diagnostic judgments of dysfunction outside the scope of science.