> Maybe these responses are adaptive and provide a fitness advantage under historically normal conditions even if they appear maladaptive in the current environment.
It's equally possible that the responses are maladaptive and provide a fitness disadvantage under historically normal and current conditions too.
Evolution is not always well optimized, and sometimes "bugs" make it through. One just needs to be fit enough to reproduce -- nothing else matters after that.
The one description that makes most sense to me is the claim that evolution is not a god. It does not reason through issues, it does not have conscience and it definitely does not have goals.
It is just a thing that happens through random changes and culling out very bad experiments. The mutation just have to be not too bad. And even bad one can survive forever if not everyone with it dies.
> The mutation just have to be not too bad. And even bad one can survive forever if not everyone with it dies.
Exactly. I have green eyes which is technically a genetic mutation. I do not think it provides any advantages, but it also causes no harms. It just is what it is.
It's equally possible that the responses are maladaptive and provide a fitness disadvantage under historically normal and current conditions too.
Evolution is not always well optimized, and sometimes "bugs" make it through. One just needs to be fit enough to reproduce -- nothing else matters after that.