Analogies for Sustainable Development/Adaptive flexibility as musical instrument

'''“Our open-ended behavioral flexibility, as individuals and as cultures, requires a genetically evolved architecture ... A more poetic metaphor than a “Darwin machine” is a musical instrument. It can produce an infinite number of songs but also has a single 'nature.'"''' (Wilson, 2009)

Overview
David Sloan Wilson uses the metaphor of a musical instrument to demonstrate the difference between evolved innateness or “genetic determinism” and evolved adaptive flexibility or capacity for change. An instrument like a guitar, violin or saxophone has a certain inflexible structure, designed for a certain purpose, but the number of sounds and melodies one can produce with it are infinite. They are up to the player, but whether a tune sounds nice and appropriate is also dependent on the environment. The human brain can certainly be thought of as one of those instruments. Although all instruments have a rigid structure, some instruments are built to be more flexible (in the types of sounds they can make) than others - consider the difference between a woodblock, a flute, and a synthesizer.

Discussion
This analogy helps clarify the difference and relationship between “genetic determinism” and adaptive flexibility. Flexibility is a result of genetically evolved structure. Other examples of genetically rigid structures with evolved flexibility are the immune system and the human brain.