[TheOtherHobbes]

"Adaptive" is not a Boolean. Contradictory, even mutually hostile, traits can develop because the ecosystem switches between different modes for various physical reasons [1] and different survival skills are optimal in each.

By the time you get to humans you have an incoherent patchwork of mutually exclusive behaviour modes and cognitive approaches - not just between individuals, but within individuals.

[1] Seasonal changes, population cycles, and so on.