Recovering Evangelicals #141 – The Teleological Menace: Why Biology (Still) Requires God
Biology is unique among the sciences in its apparently absolute dependence on language that implies a goal, direction, or intention. Does this mean that biology IS goal-oriented, or directed? If so, that has huge philosophical and theological implications!?
Our deep-dive into Intelligent Design got us wondering why so many people embrace that worldview. Not just “sheeple” who can often blindly follow vocal proponents of even crazy beliefs (COVID was a global government-orchestrated event; vaccines cause autism; everything Q-Anon; the “stolen” election), but even many with impressive academic credentials who appear to have researched the question. In trying to understand this, we came across an article with the title The Teleological Menace: Why Biology (Still) Requires God by Seth Hart, a doctoral candidate whose current research project asks: does Darwinism (Natural Selection as a causal mechanism of evolution) require teleological concepts? He made many great points that are worth sharing with our listeners.
Some of the main points we discussed with him included:
- biology is more dependent upon teleological language than all the other sciences like physics, chemistry or astronomy; both the Darwinism of the 19th century and the more modern Extended Synthesis are dependent on this
- organisms don’t just occupy their niches … they create those niches and then occupy the latter. In other words, they are agents in their own evolution.
- definitions of “teleology” and “teleological language” … roots in Platonic thinking; highly developed by Aristotle; points toward ultimate meaning and purpose
- during 13th to 16th centuries, there was a movement away from teleology within the natural sciences; this was a theological decision led by Theists like Descartes and Bacon, not an anti-religious one! Likewise, it was Jewish and Christian thinking that began to move the world away from invoking spiritual explanations into natural phenomena
- however, biologists like William Harvey, Robert Boyle, William Paley were very resistant to this effort to remove teleology from biology; Darwin went back and forth on using/resisting their influences
- today, teleological language is used everywhere and all the time in biology: “birds have wings so that they can fly” … “viruses and bacteria mutate in order to find better ways to infect you better” … “Natural Selection wants to maximize efficiency and reproduction”
- we reflected on comments made by two widely recognized philosophers when we asked them the same questions: Dr. P. Z. Myers doesn’t see teleological language in biological literature, while Dr. Denis Walsh acknowledges biologists do often use that kind of language, but they don’t mean it.
- is this overuse of teleological language “just sloppy language,” much like how we humans will often personify inanimate objects (referring to a car or boat as “she”)
At the end of this discussion, we addressed what seems to be two inevitable conclusions:
- biology doesn’t (or can’t) make sense without teleological language. Therefore life must be teleological: it has purpose and meaning.
- a Theistic worldview seems to be the only philosophically coherent way to hold this to be true.
If those two conclusions didn’t slap you in the face, you need to read them again, more carefully.
Two equally provocative implications of those two statements:
- are humans the inevitable end-point of evolution?
- is Evolution a mythological origin story as much as religions are?
Let us know what you think of those conclusions and their implications …..
If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy our retrospective of our Intelligent Design mini-series, in which we summarize our current understanding of that worldview, including why so many people embrace it.
Find Seth Hart at his university profile page or this Academia profile page. Also make sure to check the article that first brought Seth to our attention on this matter.
Dr P. Z. Myers is a Professor of Biology at the University of Minnesota Morris, and founder of and writer at the Pharyngula science blogweb-site.
Dr. Denis Walsh is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto.
Episode image by meineresterampe from Pixabay.
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