We do not inhabit a perfected world where natural selection ruthlessly scrutinizes all organic structures and then molds them for optimal utility. Organisms inherit a body form and a style of embryonic development; these impose constraints upon future change and adaptation. In many cases, evolutionary pathways reflect inherited patterns more than current environmental demands. These inheritances constrain, but they also provide opportunity. A potentially minor genetic change [:] entails a host of complex, nonadaptive consequences. [:] What 'play' would evolution have if each structure were built for a restricted purpose and could be used for nothing else? How could humans learn to write if our brain had not evolved for hunting, social cohesion, or whatever, and could not transcend the adaptive boundaries of its original purpose?

A complete theory of evolution must acknowledge a balance between 'external' forces of environment imposing selection for local adaptation and 'internal' force…

Sociobiology is not just any statement that biology, genetics, and evolutionary theory have something to do with human behavior. Sociobiology is a specific the…

Thus, we have three principles for increasing adequacy of data: if you must work with a single object, look for imperfections that record historical descent; i…

If an organised body is not in the situation and circumstances best adapted to its sustenance and propagation, then, in conceiving an indefinite variety among …

We are inescapably the result of a long heritage of learning, adaptation, mutation and evolution, the product of a history which predates our birth as a biolog…

The powerful retractile talons of the falcon- and the cat-tribes have not been produced or increased by the volition of those animals; but among the different …