Seeing 
Exaptation "Is it possible that technology is just such an exaptation, evolved originally to enable people to cut meat and chop wood, but available tens of thousands of years later to solve the growing problem of communication?"
"And might it be that our 'abilities', an adaptation of the primate brain, might through exaptation enable and explain the evolution of technological 'skills' that continues, ever accelerated, into the present?"
"is the use of a tool in a way that is not primarily intended..."
"Stephen J. Gould and Elizabeth S. Virba have proposed a term 'exaptations' to describe those characteristics in animals which give them an edvantage today, even though they may have evolved originally for a differeent purpose."
Pursell, p. 27.
An exaptation is a character evolved for a different purpose than that which it is currently used. In other words, a character may be appropriated for a new use other than the uses for which it was originally developed.
Keysone tools such as ball bearings are essential to modern machinery that forms the basis of an automated technological complex.
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| Tools of Toil: what to read. | ||
| Tools are historical building blocks of technology. | ||
