@lake My point is that a species or group or individual can acquire many traits that are simply non-maladaptive rather than adaptive. Once the revolutionary power cycle blip shows up, as long as it confers no disadvantages, it probably won’t get worked out of the system.
I heard a story once about a girl and a chicken. She was training the chicken to play a song by giving it a treat every time it pecked the right notes in the right order. During this process, the chicken started wiggling it’s neck before pecking each note. Since it was still hitting the correct notes, the girl still rewarded it; so the chicken started wiggling each time. As far as the chicken comprehended, the wiggle was just as necessary for a treat as the peck was, but really, it was completely neutral. It could have stopped wiggling at any time without any negative consequences, or continued to wiggle without any negative consequences.
If this were how the revolutionary power cycle entered the human repertoire, then speculating on how exactly it confers evolutionary advantages would be a blind alley.
@lake My point is that a species or group or individual can acquire many traits that are simply non-maladaptive rather than adaptive. Once the revolutionary power cycle blip shows up, as long as it confers no disadvantages, it probably won’t get worked out of the system.
I heard a story once about a girl and a chicken. She was training the chicken to play a song by giving it a treat every time it pecked the right notes in the right order. During this process, the chicken started wiggling it’s neck before pecking each note. Since it was still hitting the correct notes, the girl still rewarded it; so the chicken started wiggling each time. As far as the chicken comprehended, the wiggle was just as necessary for a treat as the peck was, but really, it was completely neutral. It could have stopped wiggling at any time without any negative consequences, or continued to wiggle without any negative consequences.
If this were how the revolutionary power cycle entered the human repertoire, then speculating on how exactly it confers evolutionary advantages would be a blind alley.