Grice's Exaptometer

---- By J. L. S.


JL (on the phone) ... Calling.
Is that Google?
Google. Yes, who is it?
JL. It's JL -- from the Blogs.
Google. Hi.
JL. Just to let you know I patented a new machinery. It's
"Grice's Exaptometer."

Browsing the OED, as is his wont, he comes across the
"Adaptometer" -- and since he's now using Axelrod's theory of ex-aptation (vs. ad-aptation), the gadget was created (by minor courtesy of Myers and his "self-adaptive").



self-adaptive, capable of adapting oneself or itself, (hence, by extension)
pertaining to, involving, or characterized by self-adaptation
1903 F. W. H. MYERS Human Pers. I. 216 Typical of life is its
*self-adaptive power.

Darwin speaks of GENERIC or specific (but still 'generic') adaptations of the species 'homo sapiens'. I don't think he was concerned with EACH and EVERY adaptation by SPECIMENS of the species, necessarily. That's where the Grice's exaptometer is brought to play.

----- One may need to narrow the idea to 'species-specific' ADAPTATIONS. It's very GENERAL things the evolutionists are talking about: not individual adaptations.


It seems that 'adapt' is a sort of puzzling notion in that it's like "I've led a happy life", or "I've been lucky". As Aristotle said, "Don't call a man happy until he is dead". "Adapt", and also "exapt" (but it's easier to disimplicate that) seems to be a word that needs to be used in the first-person only and with caution.








--- From the OED, on 'adapt' and 'exapt':

'adapt'

"as applied to BIOTIC", which I'd take as the BASIC sense:

Biol. Organic modification by which an organism or species becomes
adapted to its environment.

1859 DARWIN in Jrnl. Linn. Soc. Zool. III. 50

"The most vigorous and healthy males, implying perfect adaptation, must generally gain the victory in their contests [for the females].

1875 Encycl. Brit. I. 145/2

Adaptation..is usually restricted..to imply such modifications as arise during the life of an individual, when an external change directly generates some change of
function and structure.

1897 H. F. OSBORN in Science 15 Oct.,

Ontogenetic adaptation..enables animals and plants to survive very critical changes in their environment.

1904 H. E. CRAMPTON in Biometrika III. 114

A rigid..organization, incapable..of structural alterations as the result of ‘functional adaptation’.

1923 J. S. HUXLEY Ess. of Biologist i. 13

If the degree of adaptation has not increased during evolution, then it is clear that progress does not consist in increase in adaptation.

Other quotes, predating those, of general interest, vs. Grice's use of 'adaptiveness' in operant (vs. ex-operant) pirots:

1824 COLERIDGE Aids to Refl. (1848) 193

This higher species of adaptive power we call Instinct.

1854 WOODWARD Mollusca 56

Modifications relating only to peculiar habits are called adaptive.

1866 ARGYLL Reign of Law iv. (ed. 4) 185

Adaptive colouring as a means of concealment is never applied to any animal whose habits do not expose it to special danger.

1875 EMERSON Lett. & Soc. Aims iv. 114

Ah! what a plastic he is! so shifty, so adaptive!

1902 H. F. OSBORN in Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. XVI. 92

They represent an adaptive radiation for different local habitat, different modes of feeding, fighting, locomotion, etc.

1902 in Amer. Naturalist May 353

One of the essential features of divergent evolution..has been termed by the writer ‘adaptive radiation’. This term seems to express most clearly the idea of
differentiation of habit in several directions from a primitive type.

1927 HALDANE & HUXLEY Animal Biol. xi. 240

This adaptation to different modes of life, while..we call it specialization when we are thinking only of one species of animal, is called adaptive radiation when we are thinking of the group as a whole.

1958 IRE Trans. Automatic Control Dec. 102 (title)

A survey of *adaptive control systems. Ibid. 108/1 In answers to these questions may lie the fundamental principles of adaptive control.

1968 Brit. Med. Bull. XXIV. 251/1

A self-optimizing (also called ‘adaptive control’) system is one that
operates by continuously maximizing an overall performance index by adjusting the
characteristics of the system.

1984 J. F. LAMB et al. Essent. Physiol. (ed. 2) i. 13

Adaptive control systems are those which change to meet changing needs.

1879 LUBBOCK Scient. Lect. ii. 42

The modifications which insect larvæ undergo may be divided into two kindsdevelopmental..and adaptational or adaptive; those which tend to suit them to their own mode of life.

1985 A. ROSENBERG Struct. Biol. Sci. viii. 243

Adaptationalism must be compatible with the possibility, indeed the actuality, that many evolved structures have a present function, but were ‘not built by natural selection for their current roles’.

1988 Amer. Zoologist XXVIII. 200/2

They go on to allege that all sorts of problems with evolutionary theory, including a blind adherence to adaptationalism..can be laid at the door of reductionism.

A reductionist approach to the study of biological adaptations which
considers each character or feature of an organism as having evolved in
isolation to fulfil a specific function.

1983 Acta Biotheoretica XXXII. 217

The conceptual analysis in the present paper has a preliminary character. It is meant primarily as a basis for criticizing various arguments against ‘adaptationism’.

1988 Times Lit. Suppl. 19 Aug. 911/4

He enlists the somewhat dubious help of biological ‘adaptationism’ to make the point that assigning a purpose to a biological trait doesn't require knowledge of how the trait fulfils that purpose.

1991 Nature 11 July 117/3

In the English scientific context,..the complexities of conventional adaptationism may be underestimated by Gould.

----- but then he is the 'anti-Gricean scientist'! :)

Biol. Of, pertaining to, or holding a view of the evolution of morphological features which stresses adaptation by natural selection.

1978 Sci. Amer. Sept. 161/1

Their work is informed by the adaptationist program, and their aim is to explain particular anatomical features by showing that they are well suited to the function they perform.

1983 Man XVIII. 786/2

La Fontaine may well choose not to identify with the adaptationist paradigm..but this should not lead her to characterise the biological approach as in any sense pitted against cultural explanations.

1987 Nature 9 July 121/2

Foley's approach to evolution is strictly neo-darwinian and (despite his protestations) equally strictly adaptationist.

1988 J. GLEICK Chaos 201

So an adaptationist explanation for the shape of an organism or the function of an organ always looks to its cause, not its physical cause but its final cause.

Biol. One who stresses the role of adaptation in evolution, esp. one who holds that every morphological feature of an organism is the result of adaptation for a specific purpose.

1982 R. DAWKINS Extended Phenotype iii. 31

History seems to be on the side of the adaptationists, in the sense that in particular instances they have confounded the scoffers again and again.

--- if you've heard of him (Grice did!) (""_Read_ "Selfish Gene"", he wrote on a piece of paper, now deposited in "The H. P. Grice Collection", BANC MSS 90/135c, Bancroft Library).

1982 New Scientist 6 May 360/2

The cladist uses his method to construct a taxonomy; the comparative adaptationist inverts the technique.

1983 THORNHILL & ALCOCK Evolution Insect Mating Syst. i. 11

An extreme adaptationist would interpret this behavior in the following way.

Ecol. One who believes that human beings will adapt their behaviour to
accommodate changing climatic conditions. Chiefly N. Amer.

1991 Washington Post 22 Sept. C1/2

A temperature rise of two or three or four degrees spread out over 50 or 60 years? No big deal, say these adaptationists.

1991 Gazette (Montreal) 16 Oct. B2/5

The point of view of the so-called ‘adaptationist’ is not only shortsighted but also stupid.

--- cfr. "selfish and stupid genes": Or "It's the stupid, Gene!" (No offence meant!)

1992 Washington Times 19 June F2/5

Stephen Schneider was one of the first ‘adaptationists’ (i.e., moderates) in the global warming debate.

1881 Harper's Mag. Apr. 645

He possessed plenty of that Yankee adaptativeness.

Adaptedness; aptitude specially produced.

1842 MRS. BROWNING Grk. Chr. Poets 129

A hedge-thorn catches sheep's wool by position and approximation rather than adaptitude.

-- and then there's exaptitude, which I champion in.

1852 BROWNING Ess. on Shelley (1881) 16

A profound sensibility and adaptitude for act.

1863 J. C. JEAFFRESON Everard's Dau. xiii. 221

The man had..a subtle adaptiveness as well as sincere desire to please.

--- but then he died.


1878 C. STANFORD Symb. Christ vi. 172

The Saviour's words have minutely particular adaptiveness to every moment of the soul's history.

1879 CARPENTER Ment. Physiol. I. ii. §70. 74

The adaptiveness of the movements is no proof of the existence of consciousness.

--- Not for D. Hof.: the sfex moth!

1917 A. DUANE Fuchs's Textbk. Ophthalm. (ed. 5) ii. 127

A better instrument than Förster's is the adaptometer of Nagel.

---- and a still better gadget is Grice's exaptometer. (I have to write on blog on Grice senior's gadget -- as per Chapman's online bio of Grice in Literary Encyclopedia. I want a photo of it!). What did Grice's invention look like?

1928 R. J. E. SCOTT Gould's Med. Dict. (ed. 2) 31/2

Adaptometer, an instrument for measuring the time taken in retinal adaptation.

1934 H. C. WARREN Dict. Psychol. 6/1

Adaptometer, any device for measuring the course or degree of sensory adaptation, in terms of fall or rise of threshold or sensitivity.

1942 Brit. Jrnl. Psychol. July 4

Certain hysterical and pathological eye conditions undoubtedly affect adaptometer results.

--- and NB: This was not, necessarily, T. Nagel, Grice's student at St John's!