title: Two concepts of adaptation: Darwin's and psychology's.
abstract: The paper takes issue with the traditional view of Darwin's influence on psychology; namely, that it is he who passed on to psychology the concept of individual adaptation. Three arguments are presented: a) that Darwin, qua scientist, was only interested in species adaptation, an entirely different concept from that of individual adaptation, b) that Darwin's writings on individual adaptation are so unexceptional that it is inconceivable that psychologists should have been influenced by them and c) that the two concepts are logically incompatible since species adaptation presupposes a strict hereditary determinism, while individual adaptation conceives of the organism either as free and undetermined or else as determined by the environment.
mesh_terms: D000220:Adaptation, Biological; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000818:Animals; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D011584:Psychology / Q000266:history*; D014481:United States