EVOLUTION AND PURPOSE: teleonomy (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, April 05, 2024, 18:09 (24 days ago) @ David Turell

Natural purpose proposed in a book:

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262546409/evolution-on-purpose/

"A unique exploration of teleonomy—also known as “evolved purposiveness”—as a major influence in evolution by a broad range of specialists in biology and the philosophy of science.

"The evolved purposiveness of living systems, termed “teleonomy” by chronobiologist Colin Pittendrigh, has been both a major outcome and causal factor in the history of life on Earth. Many theorists have appreciated this over the years, going back to Lamarck and even Darwin in the nineteenth century. In the mid-twentieth century, however, the complex, dynamic process of evolution was simplified into the one-way, bottom-up, single gene-centered paradigm widely known as the modern synthesis. In Evolution “On Purpose,” edited by Peter A. Corning, Stuart A. Kauffman, Denis Noble, James A. Shapiro, Richard I. Vane-Wright, and Addy Pross, some twenty theorists attempt to modify this reductive approach by exploring in depth the different ways in which living systems have themselves shaped the course of evolution.

"Evolution “On Purpose” puts forward a more inclusive theoretical synthesis that goes far beyond the underlying principles and assumptions of the modern synthesis to accommodate work since the 1950s in molecular genetics, developmental biology, epigenetic inheritance, genomics, multilevel selection, niche construction, physiology, behavior, biosemiotics, chemical reaction theory, and other fields. In the view of the authors, active biological processes are responsible for the direction and the rate of evolution. Essays in this collection grapple with topics from the two-way “read-write” genome to cognition and decision-making in plants to the niche-construction activities of many organisms to the self-making evolution of humankind. As this collection compellingly shows, and as bacterial geneticist James Shapiro emphasizes, “The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable.”

ID's answer:

https://evolutionnews.org/2024/04/design-without-a-designer-new-book-says-yes/

"Teleonomy is “internal teleology” — goal-directedness that comes from within a system, not from outside. Under this theory, there need be no God (or aliens, or Platonic or Aristotelian forms, or anything of the sort) guiding the development of living systems; the living systems themselves set the goals.

***

"Corning is saying that all sorts of evolutionary theories contain the hidden assumption of purposiveness, i.e., design. This is an important admission, since it’s what ID theorists have been saying.

"Of course, he differs on where this design comes from. But it’s worth noting that the thesis of teleonomy implicitly acknowledges the validity of the design inference. If you can infer design in nature, you can infer design in nature. Period. Then you can decide whether it comes from within or from without.

"That means that if the teleonomic explanation (“living systems actively shape their own evolution”) doesn’t hold up, the old alternative hypothesis will be there, waiting.

***

"...teleonomy is “not simply a product of natural selection. It is also an important cause of natural selection and has been a major shaping influence over time in biological evolution.” Conversely, natural selection “has been both a cause of this purposiveness and an outcome.”

"This is not, in itself, illogical. You could have two forces at work — purpose and natural selection — that synergistically encourage each other, in a sort of positive feedback loop. But then, you still have to explain how the feedback loop got started.

***

"The problem with this explanation is not that it is false. As it happens, it is quite true. The problem is that it fails to explain. It does not answer the question that was really being asked.

"Likewise, “teleonomy” fails to explain. The design of nature requires an explanation, an ultimate explanation. Rather than explain, invoking “teleonomy” just dodges the question. If we say that natural selection and random variation cannot explain something, evolutionary biologists can say, “Well, it’s not random variation, it’s goal-oriented.” If we ask where the goal-oriented-ness itself came from, they will say “natural selection.” The question returns to where it began; a final cause for the existence of design in nature has yet to be proposed."

Comment: good old Shapiro is back. Long ago we concluded natural selection is passive. Now suddenly with wishful thinking it is active again. As humans, who plan with purpose, we know a mind must be involved to plan the demonstrated intricacies of living biochemistry!