The standard approach to research in evolution needs an overhaul, according to one leading biologist in a new paper. The problem, according to Eugene V. Koonin, who is Senior Investigator of the Evolutionary Genomics Research Group at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), is that the emphasis on Darwinian natural selection as the main force driving evolution, has too often encouraged a fruitless search for adaptive explanations-where none is really necessary. A crude example: suppose there is a species of cute toad that has a strange barnacle-like appendage on its head. Why? Well, the standard approach would be to try and determine what survival value such an appendage offers.