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CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Part 1: The Evolutionary Context
1. Evolution, fitness and adaptations9
1.1Darwin and natural selection 10
1.2Units of selection: the background12
1.3The ‘Ultra-Darwinist’ perspective14
1.4Fitness and ‘success’17
1.5The ‘Naturalists’ 19
1.6Who is right, and does it matter? 22
1.7Defining a ‘real’ adaptation27
1.8Adaptation, aptation, exaptation or non-adaptive accident? 30
1.9An adaptation? Some tests35
Conclusion 43
Notes 45
2.The origins of the designing brain50
2.1The workings of the brain51
2.2Reflexes, sensations, perceptions and cognition51
2.3The modular brain 52
2.4Domain-neutral modules and ontology55
2.5Modularity: a qualification56
2.6 The Upper Palaeolithic ‘Revolution’: magnitude, timing, location and speed59
2.7Human brain size 62
2.8The neocortex and social relations63
2.9Intentionality and artefacts64
2.10Human brains are social brains66
2.11Kinetic sense and technical pleasure66
2.12‘Thing using’ and cognition68
2.13Tool-making and cognitive advances71
2.14Handaxes as tools 72
2.15Handaxes: aesthetic appraisal and social significance?73
2.16The Handicap Principle74
2.17The handaxe as genetic fitness indicator76
2.18The timing of the emergence of modern human brains77
2.19The origin of the modern mind?79
Conclusion 81
Notes 84
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Part 2:The Attribution of Significance and
Meaning to Artefacts
3. The evolutionary origins of aesthetics88
3.1Aesthetic appreciation as an adaptation89
3.2Pleasure is adaptive90
3.3The method used here: a contrary view91
3.4Perceptual biases: contexts and hierarchy95
3.5Symmetry 97
3.6Proportion 99
3.7The Golden Section101
3.8‘Natural economy’ and human designing: some caveats102
3.9Patterns which excite104
3.10Patterns (and regularity, uniformity and smoothness) which soothe106
3.11Shininess, glossiness, and glitter107
3.12The case for evolved colour perceptions109
3.13The naming of colours112
3.14The case for black, white and red in artefacts114
3.15Green, yellow, and other combinations115
3.16Colour can arise by default115
3.17Colour: an alternative, adaptive mechanism116
3.18The uses of colour today: an uneven adaptive legacy119
3.19Economics: prehistory and history119
3.20Costs and benefits 121
3.21The watering pot 122
3.22The wood screw 126
Conclusion 127
Notes 129
4. Artefacts, symbolism and narrative134
4.1Symbolic thought, artefacts and language: origins and links135
4.2 Mime and gesture 136
4.3 Language: a utilitarian or a social adaptation? 138
4.4 Archaeology confirms a complex picture139
4.5 Consciousness, language and artefacts141
4.6 Artefacts as thinking143
4.7 The consequences for artefacts of this alternative view of language143
4.8 Social contracts, myth and ritual144
4.9 Our brains are evolved to create stories146
4.10 Myth and utility 146
4.11 Evolutionary literary criticism148
4.12 Language as artefact: the written word149
4.13 Inclusive fitness 150
4.14 What can artefacts do at the symbolic level?153
4.15 Symbolic meaning is flexible154
4.16 Sensory-kinetic-affective data informs attributions of symbolic meaning154
4.17 The importance of style: Part 1155
4.18 A model for detecting adaptive value in symbolic meaning156
4.19 The scarab 157
4.20 The denarius 161
4.21 The Ardabil Carpet165
Conclusion 170
Notes 172
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Part 3: The Theoretical Model
5. How humans engage with artefacts: a provisional model179
5. 
5.1Shortcomings of Miller’s position179
5.2Shortcomings of Voland’s position185
5.3A short thought experiment187
5.4 An evolutionary chronology188
5.5 Chronology informs functions192
5.6 The disadvantages of social mediation by behaviour and by language193
5.7 The origins of style194
5.8 The importance of style: Part 2196
5.9 The consequence for the makers of artefacts198
5.10 The consequences for those appraising199
5.11 The content of tacit social intelligence200
5.12 The roles of artefacts remote from their makers201
5.13 The roles of artefacts remote from their original social contexts202
5.14 Deception and detection203
5.15 Artefacts created by means other than individual craft manufacture204
5.16 Artefacts are embodiments of ways of life206
5.17 The model 207
5.18 The non-linear operation of this linear model208
5.19 The model: some difficulties209
5.20 A case study: my Apple iBook laptop computer210
Conclusion 226
Notes 232
6. Consequences 235
6.1 Integrating natural and sexual selection235
6.2 ‘Costly signal systems’ and ‘tacit social intelligence value’ can coincide238
6.3 Surface as a function of cost239
6.4 Surface as a function of tacit social intelligence241
6.5 A contemporary example: shiny motor cars242
6.6 A partial definition of beauty in artefacts243
6.7 The natural as artificial: or a partial definition of beauty in nature244
6.8 Why some things make the hair stand up on the back of your neck246
6.9 This model (and others) as tests of existing theory248
6.10 A theoretical case study: Barthes’ semiology249
6.11 Evolutionary theory and post-modernism254
6.12 The consequences for designers and their education255
6.13 Re-instating the physical and the sensory in design practice257
6.14 Confirming the value of intuition258
6.15 Evolution, culture and change260
6.16 Is the model a suite of genuine adaptations?265
6.17 A summary of findings266
6.18 Some concluding remarks273
Notes 275
Illustrations 278
Bibliography 315
Webography 323
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List of illustrations
fig. 1An Egyptian scarab: 1570 BC – 1298 BC (18
th
 Dynasty)278
fig. 2This denarius is a medium-value silver coin279
fig. 3The so-called Ardabil Carpet280
fig. 4Detail of the Ardabil Carpet281
fig. 5An English seventeenth-century watering-pot282
fig. 6A late twentieth-century wood screw283
fig. 7Even when we know the body of the BMW Z4284
fig. 8The Müller Lyer Illusion285
fig. 9The earliest archaeological evidence of tools286
fig. 10We are all descended from ‘social’ engineers287
fig. 11The puzzle of Acheulian handaxes288
fig. 12The Furze Platt Giant289
fig. 13Things created reveal, predict and define behaviour290
fig. 14Pattern as a by-product of process291
fig. 15Most of the things we create are smooth and symmetrical292
fig. 16Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species293
fig. 17As these everyday examples show294
fig. 18Red is still routinely used295
fig. 19Green is one of the most ubiquitous colours on the planet296
fig. 20A commonplace example of evolved aesthetics297
fig. 21‘Yellow is the colour of joy!’298
fig. 22Dennett has argued299
fig. 23Artefacts physically embody accumulations of behaviour300
fig. 24The nail in this 17
th
 century German reliquary301
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fig. 25My Apple iBook laptop computer302
fig. 26The visible ‘dots’303
fig. 27The symmetries and carefully-organised proportional relations304
fig. 28In terms of pattern305
fig. 29Regular pattern306
fig. 30The Apple logo 307
fig. 31Curvy Nature 308
fig. 32By 1998 the cases of computers309
fig. 33Among the references to technology in the iBook310
fig. 34The accumulated dirt on the mouse pad311
fig. 35The cracked handle…312
fig. 36Natural ‘beauty’ often equates with ‘well-made’313
fig. 37Roland Barthes’ analysis of the Citroën DS 19314
Table
Table 1. A putative sequence for the emergence of adaptive
colour recognition among humans and their ancestors,
arrived at by considering the naming of colours in 98
languages. Originally included in Berlin and Kay’s study,
Basic Colour Terms in 1964; reproduced in Barrow’s The
Artful Universe in 1995. 112
ix
Acknowledgements
In preparing this study, I am deeply indebted to Professor Philip Hussey and
Professor Trevor Hussey, my supervisors, both of whom have, in different ways,
extended towards me exactly the kind of friendly encouragement combined
with rigorous, diligent, knowledgeable critical comment which could serve as a
model to any student in my position. I might add, they have each added
immeasurably to the pleasure of the undertaking. Two decades of intelligent
conversation at the dinner table of John Steer (often selflessly and generously
provisioned by his partner, Peter Chapman) has undoubtedly led my mind into
lines of inquiry it might otherwise have neglected. Professor Gillian Naylor, the
Design Historian, was instrumental in encouraging me not to be deterred in
pursuing these ideas when first I aired them in 1996. Professor Roger Newport
directed me towards the paper by F. T. Evans, which proved a catalyst for
much that has found its way into what follows. For helpful criticism on
numerous occasions, I am grateful to my colleagues, Dr. Diana Medlicott, Dr.
Reg Winfield, Dr. Paul Springer and Damon Taylor. For helping me cope with
the idiocies of computers, I must thank my friend, John Lacey. For seeing me
through some of the attendant administrative jungle by means of patient help
and advice, I am much obliged to Karine Bloor, Dr. Anne Evans and Howard
Bush from the Academic Registry of Buckinghamshire Chilterns University
College (BCUC). I am also grateful to BCUC for supporting my attendance at the
conference ‘Mind the Map’ in Istanbul in 2002, where I presented an interim
paper; and for enabling me to take a sabbatical semester during which much of
this work was written. Finally, I cannot repay the debt I owe to my generous,
long-suffering partner, Jerome Farrell, who has not only meticulously copy-
edited the text for me (through several drafts), but listened to my endless
reflections of this study, supported me when it has been going well (and when
it has not) and without whose patience, love and encouragement, I doubt it
would ever have been finished.
x
Author’s declaration
The material included here which relates to a seventeenth-century English
earthenware watering pot was originally submitted as an essay in 1988 in
connection with my studies on a course run jointly by the Royal College of Art
and the Victoria & Albert Museum, leading to the award of MA (RCA) Design
History.