Friam - Re: Spandrel

Friam

Re: Spandrel

Posted by Eric Charles-2 on Mar 15, 2021; 4:50am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Spandrel-tp7601069p7601093.html

The spandrel is the place on the wall, whether it is decorated or not.

The decorations are what can mislead you to thinking the architect went out of their way to create the spandrels. But the spandrel exists as a byproduct of trying to do two other things: 1) Have a square-topped structure, 2) support the structure with a dome.

Similarly, natural selection should be expected to produce many structures as a result of selection for unrelated factors. Just because a structure is common in a species doesn't mean that structure itself has been selected for, even if the structure - once present - has become elaborated in fancy ways. With this concept in hand, evolutionary biologists and evolutionary psychologists should be very cautious about asserting that common traits are adaptive. Even things you can show to have resulted from selection (rather than genetic drift or other processes) could still be mere byproducts of the intersection of other adaptive traits.

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On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 12:20 AM Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

correction (arches/domes vs spandrels) are duals

If we accept that contrivance or one like it, then the two types of elements (arches/domes) are duals.

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