 In a few places, remarks by human behavioral ecologists suggest that the purpose of HBE is simply to demonstrate that human behavior is maximally adaptive: for example, Smith et al. (2001, 128) claim that “… human behavioral ecology applies the theoretical perspective of animal behavioral ecology to human populations, examining the degree to which behavior is adaptively adjusted to environmental (including social) conditions”. One possible interpretation of HBE work, therefore, is that they test the hypothesis that human behavior is adaptive (in contrast to the hypothesis that it consists of adaptations). By using methods derived from non-human behavioral ecology (such as optimality and game theoretic models), HBEs can demonstrate that the behaviors humans actually engage in tend to be optimal relative to the constraints and tradeoffs acting on them (i.e. they are “locally optimal”). Kaplan and Hill seek to demonstrate that the Ache’s prey choice behavior is in fact adaptive, as do other HBE studies that use the same method. On this interpretation, an important purpose of the project is to deflect some of the criticisms directed at Pop Sociobiology: HBEs explicitly accept that social learning of general purpose reasoning may be responsible for human behavioral strategies such as the Ache’s. However, this is ultimately irrelevant; one way or another, natural selection has, in effect, “seen to it” that humans behave in ways that tend to maximize their reproductive success. This is also consistent with the HBEs’ emphasis on the phenotypic gambit.