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Adaptation is a major topic in the philosophy of biology, as it concerns function and purpose . Some biologists try to avoid terms which imply purpose in adaptation, not least because they suggest a deity's intentions, but others note that adaptation is necessarily purposeful.
In cell biology and pathophysiology, cellular adaptation refers to changes made by a cell in response to adverse or varying environmental changes. The adaptation may be physiologic (normal) or pathologic (abnormal). Morphological adaptations observed at the cellular level include atrophy, hypertrophy, hyperplasia, and metaplasia. [1]
Charles Darwin. The idea that the function of a trait might shift during its evolutionary history originated with Charles Darwin (Darwin 1859).For many years the phenomenon was labeled "preadaptation", but since this term suggests teleology in biology, appearing to conflict with natural selection, it has been replaced by the term "exaptation".
Neural adaptation or sensory adaptation is a gradual decrease over time in the responsiveness of the sensory system to a constant stimulus. It is usually experienced as a change in the stimulus. For example, if a hand is rested on a table, the table's surface is immediately felt against the skin.
Local adaptation is a mechanism in evolutionary biology whereby a population of organisms evolves to be more well-suited to its local environment than other members of the same species that live elsewhere. Local adaptation requires that different populations of the same species experience different natural selection. For example, if a species ...
Modern biology began in the nineteenth century with Charles Darwin's work on evolution by natural selection. In 1859, Charles Darwin set out his theory of evolution by natural selection as an explanation for adaptation and speciation.
Adaptationism is an approach to studying the evolution of form and function. It attempts to frame the existence and persistence of traits, assuming that each of them arose independently and improved the reproductive success of the organism's ancestors.
An adaptive system is a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole that together are able to respond to environmental changes or changes in the interacting parts, in a way analogous to either continuous physiological homeostasis or evolutionary adaptation in biology.