   Explanatory adaptationism is viewed by its proponents (e.g., Dawkins 1976, Dennett 1995, and Griffiths 2009) as important because it organizes research to understand how natural selection underlies the world around us. To this extent, it can be viewed as an untestable aesthetic claim, instead of as a scientific claim. At minimum, it is a claim as to the proper goal of science as a manifestation of human reason and enlightenment. Amundson (1988, 1990) claims that explanatory adaptationism is a stance about the natural world and the products of scientific inquiry, instead of being a view about biology or how best to do science. However, explanatory adaptationism may have normative implications for evolutionary biologists, if adopting it is necessary in order to construct sensible explanations in developmental biology and physiology (Griffiths 2009). Viewed as an aesthetic claim, explanatory adaptationism has no practical implications for science, but it does have implications for the public debate about the relevance of biology to our image of humanity. In particular, Dennett and Dawkins argue that this perspective counters the natural theological argument from design and vindicates a secular humanist perspective.