Spandrels

by phil on Tuesday Apr 1, 2003 11:12 PM
evolution_old

Evolutionary Biology BLOG!

"Spandrels, the spaces above an arch, exist as a necessary outcome of building with arches. In the same way, they argued, some features of organisms exist simply as the result of how an organism develops or is built. Thus researchers, they warned, should refrain from assuming that every feature exists for some adaptive purpose." I'm going to be talking about this a lot in the future. I will probably argue over whether religion is a spandrel and also the improper or uninformed usage of the word "spandrel."