What is Exaptation in biology?
Exaptation is when some biological function takes novel advantage of another function (first devised by Gould and Vrba, 1982). For example, dinosaurs were the first creatures to have feathers but these were not used for flight, rather for control of body temperature (and possibly for sexual display).
What does spandrel mean in psychology?
In the context of evolution, they introduced the term spandrel as a metaphor for characteristics that are or were originally side effects and not true adaptations to the environment. They are traits which confer no adaptive advantage to an organism, but are ‘carried along’ by an adaptive trait.
What are spandrels in biology?
An evolutionary spandrel is a physical structure or behavioural characteristic that is a by-product from some other functional adaptation.
What is an exaptation example?
Exaptation is the process of adaptation of a trait for a purpose other than what the trait was evolved for. For instance, an exaptation could be the use of feathers for mating displays or flight in birds which evolved feathers originally to keep warm. An exaptation is also known as pre-adaptation.
Is consciousness a spandrel?
Instead of an adaptation, consciousness might be a spandrel (in the sense of Gould and Lewontin Reference Gould and Lewontin1979)—a by-product of some other trait that has adaptive value although consciousness itself has no adaptive value of its own (or may even be dysfunctional).
Where are spandrels used?
A spandrel is an architectural element. In old buildings like medieval churches or palaces, it’s the roughly triangular space between arches and the ceiling above them or between an arch’s upper curving line and its surrounding rectangular border.
What are spandrels used for?
Spandrel beams are load-bearing structural members around the perimeter of a floor of a building. Not only may they support loads from the roof and other floors, they may also help support a building’s walls.
What do spandrels do?
What is a spandrel in geometry?
A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently filled with decorative elements.
What is the significance of a pendentive?
Pendentives are significant in the history of architecture because they defined a new engineering technique that allowed interior domes to rise to new heights.
What are the properties that make one matter distinct from another?
It can range from chemical properties like flammability, corrosiveness, acidity to physical properties like colour, texture, flexibility etc. It is these properties that make one matter distinct from another.
What are the observable physical properties of matter?
“When we describe the properties of a substance using our five senses, it is called an observable physical property. Malleability, color, odor, texture, hardness, conductivity, elasticity, ductility, solubility, state of matter, magnetism etc., are considered as observable physical properties of matter.”
What are the intensive properties of matter?
Other properties of matter that deserve mention are refractive index, temperature, and hardness, for example. These are all intensive properties, often described as bulk properties. They do not depend on the size of the system we are measuring, or the amount of material that can be found in that system.