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“Just not so stories”: Exaptations, spandrels, and constraints
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 August 2003
Abstract
It is anthropomorphic to speak of Nature designing adaptations for a specific function, as if with conscious intent. Any effect constitutes an adaptive function if it contributes to survival and to reproduction. Natural selection is blind to what might have been the original function. Mutations arise by purest accident and are selected based on whatever fortuitous effects they might produce.
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- © 2002 Cambridge University Press
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