Counter-adaptation

In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly it is the dynamic evolutionary process that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the population during that process. Thirdly, it is a phenotypic or adaptive trait, with a functional role in each individual organism, that is maintained and has been evolved by natural selection.

Organisms face a succession of environmental challenges as they grow, and show adaptive plasticity as traits develop in response to the imposed conditions. This gives them resilience to varying environments.

Adaptation is an observable fact of life accepted by philosophers and natural historians from ancient times, independently of their views on evolution, but their explanations differed. Empedocles did not believe that adaptation required a final cause (~ purpose), but "came about naturally, since such things survived." Aristotle did believe in final causes, but assumed that species were fixed.

In natural theology, adaptation was interpreted as the work of a deity and as evidence for the existence of God.William Paley believed that organisms were perfectly adapted to the lives they led, an argument that shadowed Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who had argued that God had brought about "the best of all possible worlds." Voltaire's Dr. Pangloss is a parody of this optimistic idea, and David Hume also argued against design. The Bridgewater Treatises are a product of natural theology, though some of the authors managed to present their work in a fairly neutral manner. The series was lampooned by Robert Knox, who held quasi-evolutionary views, as the Bilgewater Treatises. Charles Darwin broke with the tradition by emphasising the flaws and limitations which occurred in the animal and plant worlds.

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