Michael Everson scripsit:

> I confess I don't know who Gould is, or a spandrel.

"Gould" in this context is Stephen Jay Gould, the late evolutionary
biologist and historian of science. The architectural sense of
"spandrel" is simply the roughly triangular area between an arch and
a right angle that surrounds the arch, somewhat as follows (use a
monospace font for this):

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
X YYY X
X S1 YYY YYY S2 X
X YYY YYY X
X YYY YYY X
X YYY YYY X
X YYY YYY X
X YYY YYY X
X YYY YYY X
X YYY YYY X

S1 and S2 are spandrels, and are analogous to negative space in
typography: the "accidental" area between the functional right angle
and the functional arch.

By extension, "spandrel" in Gould's version of evolutionary theory is
anything not specifically selected for by evolution, but existing as a
byproduct of evolutionarily designed parts of an organism.

--
John Cowan <jcowan@...> http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Raffiniert ist der Herrgott, aber boshaft ist er nicht.
--Albert Einstein