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Exaptation: embodying innovation into the adaptive cycle


Local Reality of Overcrowding -- Global Unreality of Overpopulation (Part #11)

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Exaptation in biological evolution: This argument can be further developed in the light of insights into exaptation, as introduced by Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth S. Vrba (Exaptation: a missing term in the science of form. Paleobiology, 8, 1982, 1). This was proposed as a replacement for what was considered the teleologically-loaded term "pre-adaptation".

Expatation was understood as a characteristic currently subject to selection, whose origin could be ascribed to processes other than selection or to selection for a different function. Adaptations and exaptations are included in the set of "aptations": all characters currently subject to selection.

Exaptation of exaptation: The concept has been controversial since it first arose, largely because it has been so difficult to distinguish between the forces of exaptation and adaptation in the historical context of evolution. The mixed reception is usefully summarized by Greger Larson, et al. (Exapting exaptation, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 28, 2013, 9):

The term exaptation was introduced to encourage biologists to consider alternatives to adaptation to explain the origins of traits. Here, we discuss why exaptation has proved more successful in technological than biological contexts, and propose a revised definition of exaptation applicable to both genetic and cultural evolution...Despite failing to catch on in evolutionary biology, exaptation has been adopted with considerable success in studies of the history of technology [5]. Technological innovations frequently involve the use of a process or artefact in a new context...

The ironies of this narrative are manifold. The co-option of the term by those outside of biological evolution epitomises the very process that exaptation was coined to describe. Furthermore, Gould and Vrba invented the term to replace pre-adaptation in evolutionary narratives and the teleological inference inherent in that term. Yet, as we have argued here, it is impossible to differentiate exaptation from adaptation unless we interpret the term teleologically. For this reason, most evolutionary biologists have abandoned exaptation. However, there are domains of both cultural and genetic evolution where processes of variation and selection are not blind, but directed by a degree of foresight, such as artificial selection and technological innovation. We contend that in these areas, teleological explanations are not only legitimate but necessary, and provide a wide remit for a renewed exaptationist program.

As argued by Pierpaolo Andriani Jack Cohen:

Biological adaptation assumes the evolution of structures toward better functions. Yet, the roots of adaptive trajectories usually entail subverted -- perverted-structures, derived from a different function: what Gould and Vrba called "exaptation". Generally, this derivation is regarded as contingent or serendipitous, but it also may have regularities, if not rules, in both biological evolution and technological innovation. On the basis of biological examples and examples from the history of technology, the authors demonstrate the centrality of exaptation for a modern understanding of niche, selection, and environment. In some cases, biological understanding illuminates technical exaptation. Thus, the driver of exaptation is not simply chance matching of function and form; it depends on particular, permissive contexts. (From exaptation to radical niche construction in biological and technological complex systems. Complexity, 18, 2013, 5, pp. 7-14)

Innovation and cognitive exaptation: As the emergence of latent functionality in existing artifacts, exaptation is an underexplored mechanism of novelty generation in innovation. With respect to technological innovation and sociocultural change, Exaptation produces a feature that performs a function that was not produced by natural selection for its current use (Clive Higgins, The True Meaning of Catalyst, Crescendo, and Adaptation, Exaptive, 23 October 2017). Cognitive exaptation can then be understood as the application of an idea in a different context than the one in which it originally emerged (Alicia Knoedler, Sparking Ideas for Visualizing Innovative Research Teams, Exaptive, 10 January 2019).

With respect to logical and cognitive exaptation, as noted by Alberto Gualandi.

Gould has opened the way for all a series of cognitive and neurobiological consequences, psychological and linguistic, anthropological and philosophical of which we have not yet taken full measure (Stephen J. Gould: Between Humanism and Anti-humanism: neoteny, exaptation and human sciences)

Indicative references include:

The term was highlighted in an annual Edge question with respect to the scientific term or concept that ought to be more widely known (W. Tecumseh Fitch, Exaptation, Edge, 2017)

We can thus envision an exaptive cycle as being at the heart of many novel evolutionary traits: first adaptation for some function, then exaptation for a new function, and finally further adaptive tuning to this new function. A trait's tenure as an exaptation should thus typically be brief in evolutionary terms: a few thousand generations should suffice for new mutations to appear and shape it to its new function.

For Raghu Garud, Joel Gehman and Antonio Paco Giuliani:

Extant literature draws attention to the importance of science-push, demand-pull, and institutional-steering as mechanisms driving science-based innovations. We contribute to this literature by highlighting exaptation, which refers to the cooptation of existing traits for new functions. When applied to science-based innovations, exaptation refers to the emergence of functionalities for scientific discoveries that were unanticipated ex ante. We explore how exaptation can be induced through narrative properties (relationality, temporality, and performativity), and how serendipity arrangements such as exaptive pools, exaptive events, and exaptive forums can be structured to maintain, activate and contextualize scientific discoveries. (Serendipity Arrangements for Exapting Science-Based Innovations Academy of Management Perspectives, 32, 2018, 1)

The relevance of exaptation can be seen in terms of patterns as a language, as variously emphasized (Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language, 1977; Jeremy Lent, The Patterning Instinct: a cultural history of humanity's search for meaning, 2017). Deriving insight from patterns is evident in the current interest in biomimicry as a clue to technical innovation and the dynamics of collective intelligence. With respect to collective governance the process can be extended further in terms of the patterns embodied in technology, as argued separately (Engendering a Psychopter through Biomimicry and Technomimicry: insights from the process of helicopter development, 2011).

Of relevance to the development of this argument is the sense in which configurations of higher dimensionality can be derived from lower dimensionality through projective geometry and geometric transformation: points imply lines, lines, imply planesm and the like. A pattern in two dimensions can then be said to anticipate or imply one in 3D, suggesting the relevance to cognitive development of any understanding of exaptation.

If the immediate challenge of governance is a question of navigating the adaptive cycle, of concern is how an exaptive cycle of innovation is then related to it (Brian D. Fath, et al., Navigating the adaptive cycle: an approach to managing the resilience of social systems, Ecology and Society, 20, 2015, 2); Daniel Christian Wahl, The adaptive cycle as a dynamic map for resilience thinking, Hackernoon, 15 April 2017).

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