However, that sequential super-stereotypy is not caused by a single targeted gene mutation but rather is a naturally evolved adaptation of the fixed action pattern in a species of ground squirrel, Spermophilus beecheyi [ 38], which is probably polygenic in origin.
A major factor in PBW population dynamics is the evolved adaptation of winter dormancy that enables it to bridge crop cycles.
One can think of it as follows: according to my theory, if there is an "objective" that an evolving adaptation maximizes, it is the extent of participation in the sexual population; not simply the expected number of surviving offspring without regard to their sexuality.
Examples are drawn from 5 years of climate change adaptation research with Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara communities to highlight learning that could help to evolve adaptation of modernity to climate change.
In short, the proponents of HAT propose that humans possess a number of specific, evolved adaptations for killing that have been selected for because they managed to successfully solve recurrent adaptive problems in our ancestral past.
And even for biologists, the notion of purpose in the natural order is retained largely for instructional reasons: e.g., what is the function of any evolved adaptation?
Scientists have so far identified about 20 hard-wired, evolved "adaptations" as the building blocks of religion.
Given this lack of evidence, HAT suffers in terms of its explanatory worth, relative to alternative evolutionary hypotheses, such as the idea that homicide is a by-product of other evolved adaptations.
The morality of contemporary humans really does outstrip what evolution could possibly have endowed us with; moral actions are often of a sort that have no plausible relation to our reproductive success and don't appear to be accidental byproducts of evolved adaptations.
In this way, the project will help researchers debate and empirically evaluate which psychological phenomena are evolved adaptations and which are not, irrespective of formal academic boundaries.
The Hinton lab is further exploring the extent of the killifish's evolved adaptations and vulnerabilities.
