Cognitive Scaffold

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MENTAL MODEL · M13147

Adaptationism

Adaptationism
TechnicalHigh supportScientific Methodology
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Updated 2026-09-10

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

Adaptationism is a set of views about the role of natural selection in evolution. It holds that selection among individuals within a population is the only important cause of trait evolution, and that building explanations from selection alone is the most productive way, and the chief goal, of evolutionary biology. It functions as a methodological program: from what is this for, it generates hypotheses that can actually be tested.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

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- Ask the function question: for any trait, ask what survival or reproduction problem it solves. - Rule out alternatives: check drift, developmental constraint, and historical accident before settling on selection. - Demand predictions: turn each adaptive story into a testable prediction rather than a narrative.

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Natural selection accumulates small heritable differences over long spans, so traits can come to match the environment as though designed. Adaptationism treats this cumulative filtering as the main engine and drift, constraint, and contingency as background. Its methodological appeal comes from the starting question: asking what use this is produces candidate hypotheses with checkable consequences far more efficiently than observation alone.

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Source support: Explicit

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    plato.stanford.eduhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/adaptationism/ZH · Explicit
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