 Aside from the question of how specific episodes of learning should be classified, there seems to be something close to consensus about functionality. Broadly construed, the primary adaptive function of individual learning is to generate information that is useful for dealing with (often novel features of) one’s environment. The adaptive value of social learning, on the other hand, comes from avoiding the costs of individual learning, allowing an individual to acquire useful information from others without having to go through the trouble of figuring it out on their own. This consensus, however, gives rise to a puzzle whose solution remains a matter of controversy (Rogers 1988). What has become known as Rogers’ paradox centers on the question of how capacities for social learning could have evolved. The difficulty arises from the thought that pure social learners would be unable to help increase the mean fitness of the populations they invade or in which they live, because they would be unable to contribute any innovations or useful new information. They would just imitate others, copying what is already there. From this perspective, social learners are free-riders, exploiting the knowledge and skills created by the epistemic work of individual learners while providing nothing novel or beneficial in return (Laland 2004).