Named for Alfred Russel Wallace, the other guy that came up with evolution, this is not a purely formal paradox. Instead, it starts from the presumption that no organism should evolve exotic abilities unless they help it to cope with environmental pressures. However, it seems to be the case that humans have the ability to learn to do very much harder sorts of thinking than could possibly have been useful during our evolution; Selmer Bringsjord's favorite example is the Tensor calculus, but you can really imagine just about anything in which you've ever taken a college-level course.

There are various responses to this (see Stephen Pinker's How the Mind Works for one reaction). Selmer seems to see it as a fairly strong indictment of the theory of evolution. Personally, I don't think it's all that worrisome a challenge, because the presumption it starts with is pretty shaky-sounding to me. Honestly, though, I'm actually so unworried by this challenge that I haven't bothered, and probably never will bother, to think rigorously about just what I find to be wrong with the reasoning.



Update: I found something related, so I thought I'd put this link in here, to aid those who like this topic in finding more about it:

I find evolution to be a woefully inadequate theory until it can explain the following:

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