adaptation A term widely used in evolutionary theory to describe the outcome of the process of natural selection. Genetic variations in biological species are seen as being selected on the basis of their capacity to promote or inhibit survival in a particular environment. Those variations that allow a species to survive do so by allowing them to adapt to the pressures and opportunities of their particular environment. In much social evolutionism a similar approach was adopted, with cultural innovations being seen as the objects of environmental selection and the means through which social groups may be able to adapt to their physical and social environment. Talcott Parsons took adaptation as one of the four functional prerequisites of any system of action—the others were goal attainment, integration, and latency, forming the so-called AGIL scheme. See also [The entire page is 156 words long]
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