What is an adaptation?

Required

• Background Tutorial: Ridley, Adaptive Explanation
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: adaptationism.
• Dennett, DDI, Ch. 8 Biology in Engineering, 9 Searching for Quality, 10 Bully for Brontosaurus
• Gould, S.J. and R. Lewontin (1979) 'The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme' Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 205: 581-98. (Reprinted in Sober, E. ed [1984]) The famous critique of the adaptationist program. Dennett discusses it in detail in his book.

Recommended

• Gould, ”Darwinian Fundamentalism“ and ”Pleasures of Pluralism“. In the New York Review of Books Gould presents an extended critical review of Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea. He primarily takes Dennett to task for his adaptationism. His other targets are Dawkin's gene centrism and bold clams of evolutionary psychology (and Sociobiology).
• Dennett/Gould NYRB exchange. Dennett responds to some of Gould's criticism.
• Okasha, Adaptation and Adaptationism. This is a concise but very good overview of the concept of an adaptation and the adaptationist view.
• Griffiths, P. (1996) 'The Historical Turn in the Study of Adaptation' British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47: 511-532.

1. What is an adaptation?
2. What do critics like Gould and Foder have to say about adaptationism?
3. What alternatives are there to adaptation?