Courses/CS 461/Museum of unintended consequences/Evolution and Exaptation

From CSWiki

Although evolution has certainly no intentions or goals, the process of exaptation in evolution is related to unintended consequences, because it describes a side leap or side jump in evolution. Exaptation is a sudden change in the function of an already existing part or component: an adaptation where the current function of a component or property is not the same function the component had while it has evolved under natural selection in the first place.

For instance wings are unintended consequences of feathers, originally probably developed for insulation purposes in a thermoregulatory contex, i.e. they were used originally for insulation, only later for flight. Limbs are unintended consequences of fins, three bones in the jaws of the ancestors of mammals were exapted into the hammer, stirrup and anvil, the bones of the middle ear etc. Probably sleep is also an unintended consequences of endothermic way of living, and dreams are an unintended consequences of viviparous mammals (although this is a bit speculative).

--JFromm 08:51, 3 January 2006 (PST)