Is natural selection the predominant force in shaping adaptations of organisms?

Adaptation, as defined by Gould, is the good fit of organisms to their environment. This adaptation can occur at three different levels with opposing causes. One is adaptation by the phenotypic plasticity that permits organisms to ‘mold’ their form to prevailing circumstances during ontogeny; adapting to different climates, for example, is not heritable, but the possibility to develop them is very likely. Two is adaptation in humans that is heritable; adaptation by learning. And three is adaptation by Darwin’s idea of selection in genetic variation; “the mere existence of a good fit between organisms and environment...”. If natural selection is the predominant force in shaping adaptations of organisms, then

“The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme” explains that the architecture involved in building a dome on rounded arches have an architectural by product, a spandrel, that are formed by the intersection of two rounded arches; which fit into the tapered spaces. “Yet evolutionary biologists, in their tendency to focus exclusively on immediate adaptation to local conditions, tend to ignore architectural constraints and perform as just inversion of explanation”. These spandrels were the use of available parts. The adaptationist approach to these spandrels “regards natural selection as so powerful and the constraints upon it so few that direct production of adaptation through its operation becomes the primary cause of nearly all organic form, function and behavior”.

The adaptationist approach uses “telling stories” to explain adaptations of organisms. When a “story” doesn’t match up to evidence, a simple rejection of that “story” does not occur. “First, the rejection of one adaptive story usually leads to its replacement by