Word: adaptationist
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Pinker began his argument by refuting what he called “three spurious adaptationist explanations of religion:” the suggestion that people embrace religion for its comfort, its sense of community and its ethical value...
...which claims that the hyena’s genitals are a non-adaptive by-product of high androgen levels, is wrong. “It’s an unusual case, but it seems to me an important symbol—first of the supposed correctness of the anti-adaptationist perspective, and now of the fact that simplistic thinking can be found on both sides of the debate,” he said. “Despite [Gould’s] long-held claims, an adaptationist perspective may well be the right way to explain hyena pseudo-penises after...
...besides the historical interest of this period, understanding the nature of the synthesis is important because a rival theory is currently being formulated in the rooms of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. The attack comes under many headings: "adaptationist critiques," "punctuated equilibrium," and others. But none of these names and none of these new ideas would have any meaning without the Evolutionary Synthesis which gave birth to them, without the synthesis that gave us our modern notion of where we came from and how we got here...
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