The peculiar evolutionary strategy of man

Lawrence Slobodkin

pp. 227-248

in: Robert S. Cohen, Mark W. Wartofsky (eds), Epistemology, methodology, and the social sciences, Berlin, Springer, 1983

Abstract

I shall be presenting some very simple ideas about the evolutionary process from which I shall infer that there is a general restriction on the form of adaptation of organisms relating to the timing and magnitude of environmental stresses and the pattern with which organisms minimize their impact. Humans, owing to their extensive reconstruction of sensory data, have the potentiality, sometimes realized in fact, to depart radically from the functional restrictions found in most animals.