What is an adaptation?
Adaptations solve reproductive problems, that is, adaptations have functions. The lungs are an adaptation, and their function is to transfer gases to and from blood. Muscles are an adaptation, and their function is to apply force to various parts of the body. The function of intestines is (in part) to extract nutrients from food. In general, all members of a species of the same sex and developmental stage share the same functional organization (i.e., have the same adaptations). All humans have bones, muscles, hearts, eyes, etc. While some problem solving abilities (functions) of the nervous system are obvious (e.g., vision), many are not; the goal of evolutionary psychology is to identify all functions of the nervous system. Functional organization implies specialization. Oxygenating blood is a different problem than circulating blood, and it would be difficult if not impossible for a single functional unit to effectively solve both problems. Efficiently transferring oxygen to blood re
“The whole concept of an adaptation is the notion that there is a pre-existing problem and an organism solves it by adapting to the problem. For example, fins are an adaptation for swimming, so what we mean is swimming was a problem before fish had fins. The problem with looking at evolution in that way is swimming is a problem for trees too! Things only start to find these problems and adapt when they begin to interact with the world. So adaptation cannot be a case of organisms going into pre-existing problems because organisms make the problems by their very existence and change. The real issue in evolution is that organisms are in constant construction of their own worlds, posing the problems which they then have to solve. Natural selection does not cause adaptations to solve problems given by nature. Natural selection means the improvement in the way in which organisms interact in the world when they’ve already started to interact in that way.
