This brief comment is intended to commend the authors on their ambitious expansion of core evolutionary theory toward an applied social science and to address the first of their two goals: that of sketching a science of intentional change centered on evolution that effectively resolves the “paradox of elaborate genetic innateness and elaborate open-ended flexibility” (sect. 4, para. 2).
The genetics revolution made possible by the technological advances in the post-genomic era has led to fundamental changes in the working paradigm of the genotype-to-phenotype relationship. Rather than separate forces acting on the organism, genes and the environment act together, often in highly complex ways. Rather than immutable, DNA is open to some, perhaps substantial, environmental influence. Rather than the sole biological agent of heritability, the epigenome can also be inherited, it is now clear. Therefore, from a post-genomics perspective, the environment is as crucial as the DNA sequence is for constructing the phenotype.
Matching phenotypes with their environments is the critical adaptive problem (LaFreniere & MacDonald Reference LaFreniere and MacDonald2013). To be successful, each species (or each cultural group or each individual) must be continuously capable of effectively responding to both recurrent and novel environmental challenges. In this commentary, I highlight two basic processes by which phenotypes become adapted to novel or changing environments: (1) developmental plasticity and (2) domain-general psychological mechanisms.
Developmental plasticity refers to the process by which a given genotype can give rise to a range of different physiological or morphological types in response to different environmental inputs during development. Besides facilitating adaptation of the organism to specific environmental niches, developmental plasticity has important consequences with respect to our human capacity for open-ended change. If the generation of phenotypes is conditional and dependent on external or environmental inputs, evolution can proceed by a “phenotype-first” route with genetic change following, rather than initiating, the formation of morphological and other phenotypic novelties (West-Eberhard Reference West-Eberhard2003). As a result of modularity and plasticity, the organism can respond to new situations that recur with a novel trait, which then is able to spread throughout a population via selection for the ability required to produce the trait. In this view, evolution begins with a recurrent developmental change brought about either by a mutation or (more commonly) by environmental induction. Natural selection then consolidates the trait by modifying genes influencing the regulation of the trait.
Rather than relying primarily on mutations to structural genes within the DNA, evolution more often simply rearranges developmental regulatory genes to create novel structures, often conserving a similar program or module in a host of organisms. Rather than always viewing the organism as passively shaped by the environment, it is often the behavior of the organism that actively creates the environmental conditions under which morphological traits are then selected (Wcislo Reference Wcislo1989). This is especially true in humans. In this view, the processes of genetic assimilation are set in motion by the behavior of the organism. As a consequence, behavior often takes the lead in evolution, in as much as genetic-based morphological changes often follow the path initiated by behavioral innovations.
Given the evolutionary logic that predominates today in evolutionary psychology (i.e., that recurrent environmental situations have led to modules specifically designed to respond to them), another question that remains is whether there are other types of plasticity capable of dealing adaptively with novel environments. The narrow view of evolutionary psychology criticized by the authors wrongly denies the overwhelming importance of domain-general psychological mechanisms in humans for imagining, creating, and adapting to novel environments. As the authors effectively argue, instead of pitting themselves against their caricature of the social sciences as a monolithic standard social science model, evolutionary psychologists need to embrace aspects of mainstream psychology that are critical in constructing a science designed to manage change. Domain-general mechanisms of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and social learning enable organisms to take advantage of important contingencies that were not recurrent over evolutionary time (MacDonald Reference MacDonald and Kush2013). In this sense, human cognitive ability – prototypically human general intelligence and problem solving – enables novel solutions to various human goals. Evolved motivational systems facilitate the evolution of any cognitive mechanism, no matter how opportunistic, flexible, or domain-general, that is able to solve the problem or achieve the goal.
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This brief comment is intended to commend the authors on their ambitious expansion of core evolutionary theory toward an applied social science and to address the first of their two goals: that of sketching a science of intentional change centered on evolution that effectively resolves the “paradox of elaborate genetic innateness and elaborate open-ended flexibility” (sect. 4, para. 2).
The genetics revolution made possible by the technological advances in the post-genomic era has led to fundamental changes in the working paradigm of the genotype-to-phenotype relationship. Rather than separate forces acting on the organism, genes and the environment act together, often in highly complex ways. Rather than immutable, DNA is open to some, perhaps substantial, environmental influence. Rather than the sole biological agent of heritability, the epigenome can also be inherited, it is now clear. Therefore, from a post-genomics perspective, the environment is as crucial as the DNA sequence is for constructing the phenotype.
Matching phenotypes with their environments is the critical adaptive problem (LaFreniere & MacDonald Reference LaFreniere and MacDonald2013). To be successful, each species (or each cultural group or each individual) must be continuously capable of effectively responding to both recurrent and novel environmental challenges. In this commentary, I highlight two basic processes by which phenotypes become adapted to novel or changing environments: (1) developmental plasticity and (2) domain-general psychological mechanisms.
Developmental plasticity refers to the process by which a given genotype can give rise to a range of different physiological or morphological types in response to different environmental inputs during development. Besides facilitating adaptation of the organism to specific environmental niches, developmental plasticity has important consequences with respect to our human capacity for open-ended change. If the generation of phenotypes is conditional and dependent on external or environmental inputs, evolution can proceed by a “phenotype-first” route with genetic change following, rather than initiating, the formation of morphological and other phenotypic novelties (West-Eberhard Reference West-Eberhard2003). As a result of modularity and plasticity, the organism can respond to new situations that recur with a novel trait, which then is able to spread throughout a population via selection for the ability required to produce the trait. In this view, evolution begins with a recurrent developmental change brought about either by a mutation or (more commonly) by environmental induction. Natural selection then consolidates the trait by modifying genes influencing the regulation of the trait.
Rather than relying primarily on mutations to structural genes within the DNA, evolution more often simply rearranges developmental regulatory genes to create novel structures, often conserving a similar program or module in a host of organisms. Rather than always viewing the organism as passively shaped by the environment, it is often the behavior of the organism that actively creates the environmental conditions under which morphological traits are then selected (Wcislo Reference Wcislo1989). This is especially true in humans. In this view, the processes of genetic assimilation are set in motion by the behavior of the organism. As a consequence, behavior often takes the lead in evolution, in as much as genetic-based morphological changes often follow the path initiated by behavioral innovations.
Given the evolutionary logic that predominates today in evolutionary psychology (i.e., that recurrent environmental situations have led to modules specifically designed to respond to them), another question that remains is whether there are other types of plasticity capable of dealing adaptively with novel environments. The narrow view of evolutionary psychology criticized by the authors wrongly denies the overwhelming importance of domain-general psychological mechanisms in humans for imagining, creating, and adapting to novel environments. As the authors effectively argue, instead of pitting themselves against their caricature of the social sciences as a monolithic standard social science model, evolutionary psychologists need to embrace aspects of mainstream psychology that are critical in constructing a science designed to manage change. Domain-general mechanisms of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and social learning enable organisms to take advantage of important contingencies that were not recurrent over evolutionary time (MacDonald Reference MacDonald and Kush2013). In this sense, human cognitive ability – prototypically human general intelligence and problem solving – enables novel solutions to various human goals. Evolved motivational systems facilitate the evolution of any cognitive mechanism, no matter how opportunistic, flexible, or domain-general, that is able to solve the problem or achieve the goal.