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Teleology in biology is the use of the language of goal-directedness in accounts of evolutionary adaptation, which some biologists and philosophers of science find problematic. The term teleonomy has also been proposed. Before Darwin, organisms were seen as existing because God had designed and created them; their features such as eyes were taken by natural theology to have been made to enable them to carry out their functions, such as seeing. Evolutionary biologists often use similar teleological formulations that invoke purpose, but these imply natural selection rather than actual goals, whether conscious or not. Dissenting biologists and religious thinkers held that evolution itself was somehow goal-directed (orthogenesis), and in vitalist versions, driven by a purposeful life force. Since such views are now discredited, with evolution working by natural selection acting on inherited variation, the use of teleology in biology has attracted criticism, and attempts have been made to teach students to avoid teleological language.
Monad to Man: the concept of progress in evolutionary biology is a 1996 book about the longstanding idea that evolution is progressive by the philosopher of biology Michael Ruse. It analyses the connection between ideas of progress in culture generally and its application in evolutionary biology.
References
- ↑ Cain's web page
- ↑ BSHS Monographs Webpage Archived 29 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Cain, Joe. 2009. "Rethinking the Synthesis Period in Evolutionary Studies". Journal of the History of Biology42: 621-648.
- ↑ Biographical essays appear in Michael Ruse and Joseph Travis (eds.). 2009. Evolution: The First Three Billion Years (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). ISBN 978-0-674-03175-3.
- ↑ Cain, Joe. 2009. "Ritual Patricide: Why Stephen Jay Gould Assassinated George Gaylord Simpson", in David Sepkoski and Michael Ruse (eds.), The Paleobiological Revolution: Essays on the Growth of Modern Paleontology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), pp. 346-363.
- ↑ "STS wins award for engagement 25 January 2012" Archived 16 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine . Accessed 19 February 2010
- ↑ "Joe Cain Wins the 2007 Joseph H. Hazen Education Prize from the History of Science Society", British Society for the History of Science. Accessed 7 May 2015
- ↑ 2007 "Competition Winner Announced", British Society for the History of Science. Accessed 7 May 2015.
- ↑ ISHPSSB Newsletter Archived 16 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine , vol. 17 (2006), no. 2, International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology. Accessed 19 February 2010
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