I think Gould should be required reading in college for any science student. One of the great examples of the adaptionist program is the thinking of Alfred Wallace, co-discoverer of natural selection. Wallace was so committed to the adaptionist way of thinking that it drove him to being a deist. By his logic: 1) Only natural selection could produce a biological feature. 2)Humans could sing, write, make art, etc. 3)These traits were so young that they could not have arisen via natural selection. Therefore, God must have instilled man with the creative capacity. Really, if you are an adaptionist, its unassailable logic. But, even Darin knew better. He proposed several different types of selection to circumvent this type of thinking. Its been a while since I've read the stuff, but the one that comes immediately to mind is sexual selection (e.g. the dance of a bower bird).
As the human companion to an African grey parrot, I have to say that: Ramses (my dear feathered friend) sings more beautifully than I, and he knows what he sings. He asks for his favorite foods - piñon, cherries, almonds. He can use over 200 words and phrases in context. He has even come up with a real joke! A bird joke! He tells the joke to anyone he trusts. Ramses invents songs, riffs on his favorite tunes, sometimes whistles or sings something completely new, and always beautiful. Humans aren't the only purveyors of art. We are artistic, but just one animal out of who-knows-how-many who can toss vowel and feather and heart to the wind. Anyway, I know nothing about evolution or nothing about anything ,really. Just wanted to talk about my parrot.
Birds are definitely the other great artists of the animal kingdom. If you've never seen videos of a bower bird or a bird of paradise dancing for their mates, its a sight to behold. Re: Wallace, he was writing in the mid to late 19th c. At that time, it wasn't even universally accepted that blacks could be taught to read, so its no surprise that many people would think of humans as the only species that could create.