   Empirical adaptationism is typically regarded as descriptive of the evolution of directly observable traits such as leg length (e.g., Vella 2008). A dizzying variety of traits has been analyzed from the perspective of empirical adaptationism; many specific examples can be found in Hardy (2002), Stephens et al. (2007), and Westneat and Fox (2010). Many proponents of empirical adaptationism concede that important aspects of the evolution of DNA and protein sequences are little influenced by natural selection.