The coelacanth still lives: Bringing selection back to the fore in a science of behavior

There is little scientific debate regarding the validity of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, which effectively describes how relevant ancestral histories produce both an organism's genetic characteristics and innate behavioral repertoires. The combination of variation and selection in the production of novel forms can be extended beyond Darwinian theory to encompass facts of ontogeny. The present article sheds light on an underappreciated and critical insight, namely, that the consequences of behavior have a selective effect analogous to that observed in biological evolution. Three levels of environmental selection (phylogenic, ontogenic, and cultural) constitute a full account of the causes for action. This perspective identifies the relevant functional contingencies of which behavior is a product, it accurately and parsimoniously predicts a wide variety of disparate behavioral findings, it resolves old debates on nativism and empiricism, it unites psychological science under a central organizing principle, and it specifies psychology's position in relation to biology. Wholesale adoption of this perspective should be considered a positive advance for the field of psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).