Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2002 - Volume 25, Issue 04  


Short Communication

Adaptationism and molecular biology: An example based on ADHD

James Swanson a1, Robert Moyzis a1, John Fossella a2, Jin Fan a2 and Michael I. Posner a2
a1 UC Irvine Child Development Center, Irvine, CA 92612 jmswanso@uci.edu rmoyzis@uci.edu
a2 Sackler Institute, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY 10021 mip2003@med.cornell.edu

Abstract

Rather than starting with traits and speculating whether selective forces drove evolution in past environments, we propose starting with a candidate gene associated with a trait and testing first for patterns of selection at the DNA level. This can provide limitations on the number of traits to be evaluated subsequently by adaptationism as described by Andrews et al.