Re: Evolution, "adaptation", and what's currently adaptive

Len Piotrowski (lpiotrow@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
Fri, 6 Sep 1996 12:56:22 GMT

In article <50mvjp$27bc@argo.unm.edu> mycol1@unm.edu (Bryant) writes:

>[snip]

>Male sexual jealousy no longer serves an adaptive purpose (a
>fitness-enhancing purpose), I argued, because of laws which punish
>expressions of this emotion.

The majority of recorded cultures have no such "laws." I for one am unaware of
any local, state, or federal "jealousy" laws in the US. Maybe you can
elaborate?

>Sugar was a limiting resource in ancestral environments, which certainly
>include the Pleistocene African savanna, but are no longer limiting. A
>craving which could have been adaptive then is now clearly unhealthy.

Why is all your archaeological evidence negative? No archaeological trace of a
limiting resource, no trace of an archaeological craving, no trace of an
archaeological "sugar craving." And why must "sugar craving" in your estimate
as a member of this culture and time necessarily imply a functional adaptation
in the past?

>>>[snip]

>You don't think that suckling one's baby, responding to its cry, picking
>as lovers healthy mates, had any adaptive significance throughout human
>evolution, in other words?

Problematic, neh? But you're not making a claim for a "suckling gene," or a
"crying gene," or a "healthy mate gene" are you? Or are you?

Cheers,

--Lenny__