David Goodman<dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote:
From the excellent little book "Keywords in
Evolutionary Biology" by
Evelyn Fox Keller & Elisabeth Lloyd,
"Adaptation, Current uses" by Mary Jane West-Eberhard,
"An 'adaptation' is a characteristic of an organism whose form is the
result of selection in a particular functional context Accordingly.
the process of 'adaptation' is the evolutionary modification of a
character under selection for efficient or advantageous
(fitness-enhancing) functioning in a particular context.... p.13
By "characteristic" do they not mean "observed [quantity [result or
process]]?" By "organism" do they not mean "species?" The point
here
is that no "organisms" themselves "adapt" - "organisms" are
instances
of a species, and its the species itself that "adapts."
But even that is not technically accurate - "adaptation" is a
perception of overall change - based in a *quantitative estimation of
things being different from what they were before. Then the
interesting point of "adaptation" is that the concept means something
more than just *quantifiable change(s) - that time and biochemistry
bring about some *qualitative improvements out of those changes.
Hence it's undeveloped meaning ("organism's change") is imprecise, and
its developed meaning makes it still just a colloquialism for
"evolution" or "natural selection" - even when breaking it down as I
just did. The authors get it only mostly right.
-Stevertigo