Natural selection, writes the philosopher David Buller in Adapting Minds, his critique of evolutionary psychology, “has not designed a brain that consists of numerous prefabricated adaptations” but rather one that is able “to adapt to local environmental demands throughout the lifetime of an individual, and sometimes within a period of days, by forming specialized structures to deal with those demands.”28 Evolution has given us a brain that can literally change its mind—over and over again.
