Department of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton St, London WC2A 2AE, UK.
Hist Philos Life Sci. 2013;35(2):193-212.
One of the most well known methodological criticisms of evolutionary psychology is Gould's claim that the program pays too much attention to adaptations, and not enough to exaptations. Almost as well known is the standard rebuttal of that criticism: namely, that the study of exaptations in fact depends on the study of adaptations. However, as I try to show in this paper, it is premature to think that this is where this debate ends. First, the notion of exaptation that is commonly used in this debate is different from the one that Gould and Vrba originally defined. Noting this is particularly important, since, second, the standard reply to Gould's criticism only works if the criticism is framed in terms of the former notion of exaptation, and not the latter. However, third, this ultimately does not change the outcome of the debate much, as evolutionary psychologists can respond to the revamped criticism of their program by claiming that the original notion of exaptation is theoretically and empirically uninteresting. By discussing these issues further, I also seek to determine, more generally, which ways of approaching the adaptationism debate in evolutionary biology are useful, and which not.
进化心理学最著名的方法论批评之一是古尔德的观点，即该理论过于关注适应，而对适应的扩展适应（exaptations）关注不足。同样广为人知的是对这一批评的标准反驳：即，对适应扩展适应的研究实际上取决于对适应的研究。然而，正如我在本文中试图表明的那样，认为这场争论到此为止还为时过早。首先，在这场争论中普遍使用的适应扩展适应的概念与古尔德和弗拉巴最初定义的概念不同。注意到这一点特别重要，因为其次，对古尔德批评的标准回应只有在批评是根据前者的适应扩展适应的概念而不是后者的概念提出的情况下才有效。然而，第三，这并没有在很大程度上改变争论的结果，因为进化心理学家可以通过声称原始的适应扩展适应的概念在理论上和经验上没有什么意义来回应对其理论的扩展适应扩展适应的批评。通过进一步讨论这些问题，我还试图更普遍地确定进化生物学中适应主义争论的哪些方法是有用的，哪些是没有用的。
