ADAPTEDNESS
Charles François (2004). ADAPTEDNESS, International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, 2(1): 38.
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 38 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
Good adaptation.
H. PATTEE discussed this ambiguous concept in the following way: “How do we go about determining adaptedness? If a species is well-adapted, does this mean that selection pressures are low and we should not expect rapid evolutionary change ? Or is evolutionary creativity an important component of adaptation ?” (1972, p.33)
In other words, which one is better adapted: the amoeba, which has survived changeless for hundreds of millions of years by cloning itself, or man, a rather more recent, complex and “efficient” being, but whose future survival is anybody's guess?
In PATTEE's opinion, different criteria of adaptedness should be used at different levels of complexity.