Refutation of the Teleological View of Evolution

There remains no credibility to arguments in opposition of Magellan’s spherical Earth (a theory originating in ancient Greek), Copernicus’s heliocentrism, or Newton’s Law of Gravitation; however, each of those theoretical assertions caused rifts in the common thinking of their times. While the Copernican Effect was considered seismic, no scientific revelation has impacted the world community with the same magnitude as Darwin’s theories of evolution—descent with modification, and natural and sexual selection. A widely applicable neologism I construed—What was fringe or heresy yesterday is science today—remains outside of the Darwinian paradigm since, for over one hundred fifty years, the central debate between creation and evolution continues, along with discord among the subsets contained within each side of the argument. Moreover, there appear to be as many scholarly exegeses on the conjecture of Darwin’s theism, if any, as there are on the central arguments of his theories. A fair presupposition is that Darwin’s beliefs would be revealed in his own writings; however, even when Darwin appears to make a clear statement on his theological position, he keeps his readers in obscurity through inconstancy, contradiction, or ambiguity, rendering his works ripe for analytical conjecture by those championing atheism, agnosticism, or natural theology. This essay will review Darwin’s beliefs as revealed in his writings throughout his life. Indeed, he transitioned as he matured as a man, scientist, father, and husband. Occasionally, examples will be provided to illustrate how Darwin’s own words are utilized out of context to support an author’s position on Darwin’s faith or lack of faith in a Creator. Finally, Darwin’s implied teleology is asserted through the examinations of First Cause, natural laws and theology, and theodicy.

Evolution Education and Outreach, 2020

Teleology, explaining the existence of a feature on the basis of what it does, is usually considered as an obstacle or misconception in evolution education. Researchers often use the adjective "teleological" to refer to students' misconceptions about purpose and design in nature. However, this can be misleading. In this essay, I explain that teleology is an inherent feature of explanations based on natural selection and that, therefore, teleological explanations are not inherently wrong. The problem we might rather address in evolution education is not teleology per se but the underlying "design stance". With this I do not refer to creationism/intelligent design, and to the inference to a creator from the observation of the apparent design in nature (often described as the argument from design). Rather, the design stance refers to the intuitive perception of design in nature in the first place, which seems to be prevalent and independent from religiosity in young ages. What matters in evolution education is not whether an explanation is teleological but rather the underlying consequence etiology: whether a trait whose presence is explained in teleo-logical terms exists because of its selection for its positive consequences for its bearers, or because it was intentionally designed, or simply needed, for this purpose. In the former case, the respective teleological explanation is scientifically legitimate, whereas in the latter case it is not. What then should be investigated in evolution education is not whether students provide teleological explanations, but which consequence etiologies these explanations rely upon. Addressing the design stance underlying students' teleological explanations could be a main aim of evolution education. Let us begin with a simple question: "Why do we have a heart?". If you ask students, but also scientists, this question , a likely answer to receive is: "In order to pump blood. " We usually ask "Why?" questions in our attempt to explain a phenomenon, in other words in order to identify its causes. However, does the phrase "In order to pump blood" causally explain the fact that we have a heart? This is a conceptually tricky issue that teachers and educators need to approach thoughtfully in order to make students understand the issues at stake. Let this be our guiding question in exploring what teleology is. The question I therefore intend to answer in this essay is the following: Is the explanation "We have a heart in order to pump blood" a scientifically legitimate one for the presence of a heart? Generally speaking a "Why?" question can be answered with reference to three kinds of causes (based on Mayr 1961; Ariew 2003): ultimate causes, proximate causes, and final causes. Ultimate causes are to be found in the

Evolution: Education and Outreach, 2011

Human beings are predisposed to think of evolution as teleological—i.e., having a purpose or directive principle—and the ways scientists talk about natural selection can feed this predisposition. This work examines the suggestion that students’ teleological thinking operates as an obstacle when the natural selection evolution model is taught. What we mean by obstacle is an established way of thinking that resists change due to its explanatory power. In light of this approach, the challenges of teaching evolution in biology education have been revised, and improved methodological strategies aimed at a better comprehension of the Darwinian evolution model are suggested.

2019

I explore briefly themes of purpose and unguided processes surrounding evolutionary biology and divine teleology; more specifically to explore what, if any, relationship or connection between the two exists.

Some critics hold that all talk of functions, purposes, goals, and intentions should be outlawed in biology, because they are all teleological notions. This stricture makes it difficult to write non-teleologically about evolution (or anything) because language and narrative are suffused with agency and intent. I offer a reading of several works of colloquial science to illustrate the various conceptions of teleology in biology and the futility of trying to purge discourse entirely of teleological framings. The subject-object constituents of language and certain features of verbs carry connotations of intent even when they describe a mindless process like natural selection. Narratives, meanwhile, work by implying that agents (with goals) are what weave together the unspecified connections between events. Combined, the constraints of language and narrative guarantee that authors will be accused of teleology even while arguing, often convincingly, against teleology in evolution.

It is a common assumption that biological organisms appear as though they were designed. Prior to the Darwinian revolution, the order of biological organisms was often taken as a sign of their divine Creator. It is also commonly argued that Darwinian evolutionary theory as a good explanation for the adaptive complexity of biology reveals this appearance to be merely an illusion. However, in recent philosophical discussion several defenses of the compatibility of divine design and Darwinian evolution have emerged. These defenses argue that not only are divine design and evolution compatible, but even that biological organisms can continue to function as pointers to the Creator even in a Darwinian cosmos. This article explores and extends these recent arguments. I analyze four different strategies for arguing that the wisdom of the Creator is apparent in biological organisms. The basic underlying assumption is that the products of some larger whole can reflect the rationality and designedness of that whole.

Synthese, 2014

Darwinism cannot be true on the grounds that there are no laws of selection to support counterfactuals about why traits are selected-for. Darwinian explanations, according to this objection, amount to mere 'plausible historical narratives'. I argue that the objection is predicated on two problematic assumptions: A nomic-subsumption account of causation and causal explanation, and a fine-grained view of the individuation of selected-for effects. Against the former, I argue that Darwinian explanations are a historical species of mechanistic explanation and that mechanisms are causally productive and counterfactual supporting in the absence of appropriate laws. Once this mechanistic framework is in place, the demand for laws of selection vanishes and the historical cum causal coherence of Darwinism is restored. As for the second assumption, I argue that it is an artefact of the teleosemantic program with no basis in evolutionary biology and that properly understood, Darwinian evolutionary biology shows just why teleosemantics cannot succeed.

This papers examines the feasibility of Evolutionary Epistemology and Telesosemantics as naturalistic accounts of knwoledge and intentionality. Both constitute a good example of what is called Philosophical Naturalism. After considering queries with both theories we propose a differnt account in order to naturalize knwoledge and meaning. The argumentative line defended is an other kind of naturalization, one based on History and not solely in Natural History. From this point of view concept fixation and epistemological justification practices are dependent of historical dynamics and not solely from Natural History.

Hybris, 2011

There are three main purpose of the presented paper. Firstly, the presentation of the most common fallacies concerning the theory of evolution and its implications on the fields of ethics and metaphysic. Secondly, the undertaking of trial leading to the elucidation of the most crucial concepts of evolutionary process. Thirdly, presentation of some pivotal issues connected with the interpretation of the theory of evolution. The Author begins with the cursorily presentation of the misunderstandings rooted in the tradition of Aristotle formal cause and Kant's teleonomy. Presented arguments demonstrate that teleological interpretations are inconsistent with the evolutionary framework of modern biology. Subsequently positions of Lamarckism and saltacionism are analyzed to illustrate some misunderstandings connected with the historical forms of evolutionary debates. At the end basis of evolutionary ethics and its reception is examined.

The problem that modern philosophy of science has with teleological explanations of natural objects is that they are by no means epistemologically justified, and still we tend to explain natural objects by referring to their functions as if they were causally determined by their ends. This paper's purpose is to show how Darwin's theory of natural selection made possible to consider organisms' adaptation to their environment without reference to an intelligent designer.