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> everything that's considered evidence of evolution could also be considered evidence of teleology No. Teleology has a goal in mind and evolution has been se

by derleth 14y ago

> everything that's considered evidence of evolution could also be considered evidence of teleology No. Teleology has a goal in mind and evolution has been seen to run down dead ends many, many times. All of the extinct species are dead ends. > What is there that exists that is fundamentally incompatible with teleology existing or makes it highly unlikely? All of the extinct species. The fact the human eye has a blind spot whereas the squid eye does not. The fact cancer is possible. If I had a biology textbook closer to hand, I could go on at length. > What makes you think that you would see evidence for it if it existed? If we can't see something, or measure it in any other way, or otherwise provide evidence for its existence, then why should we ever behave as if it existed? > evidence in favor of teleology I've yet to see any actual evidence in favor of teleology in evolution. Non-teleological explanations are simpler and they also explain all of the weird crap we see. In addition, our non-teleological theories have allowed us to predict quite a bit about how biology works in the real world. That mix of simplicity and increased predictive power makes the non-teleological theories a lot better than the previous teleological ones.

Alex3917 14y ago
"No. Teleology has a goal in mind and evolution has been seen to run down dead ends many, many times. All of the extinct species are dead ends." The best way I've heard it described is like dropping a marble into a bowl. The marble will go up and down and wobble around but will eventually settle at the bottom of the bowl. In other words, it would basically be encoded into the universe as a preference that over time would win out. "All of the extinct species. The fact the human eye has a blind spot whereas the squid eye does not." Just because not all matter in the universe is condensed into a single point doesn't mean that gravity doesn't exist. Sometimes things get further apart, sometimes things get closer together, but gravity still exists. "That mix of simplicity and increased predictive power makes the non-teleological theories a lot better than the previous teleological ones." I'm not arguing that teleology is a better scientific theory than evolution; it's not. But just because it's a crappy scientific theory (well, actually it's not even a theory) doesn't mean that it's less likely that there are some sort of teleological forces baked into the universe, e.g. a preference for the creation and preservation of novelty.
- nitrogen 14y ago
  It sounds like you're using analogies to "prove" your point, rather than using evidence to prove and analogies to illustrate. This is a very common theme in my experience with arguments in favor of an external force guiding evolution (and other unprovable subjects). If we're not careful, thinking by analogy can lead us to believing incorrectly that irrelevant attributes of the analogy actually apply to the universe.
  - Alex3917 14y ago
    Except I'm not arguing in favor of an external force. Tokenadult said there was no external force, I said we can't know if there is an external force.
    - derleth 14y ago
      > I said we can't know if there is an external force. Can you know for sure you're not the Queen of England?
      - Alex3917 14y ago
        Depends on your definition of 'know'. There is an entire subfield of philosophy devoted to this question.
andreasvc 14y ago
> All of the extinct species. The fact the human eye has a blind spot whereas the squid eye does not. The fact cancer is possible. If I had a biology textbook closer to hand, I could go on at length. Those examples don't prove much, they just demonstrate that any goal there could be is not aligned with the fate of those species. You seem to be arguing against the assumption that teleology would imply some sort of perfection (for some somewhat arbitrary definition of perfection) The truth is that there is an epistemological problem here. For all we know, the universe was created by Mr. X who _wants_ us to think there is no teleology. Deception could be the very goal. There is absolutely no way for us to verify this, so there is also no reason to state categorically that there is no teleology. You could make an analogy with a (pseudo) random number generator. How do you distinguish between a real and a pseodo RNG? You can't, really. There are some statistical tests. But if someone is determined to fool you, they can just feed you X amount of GBs of data from a true random source, and only then start to feed you an infinite amount of zeroes. I'm of course not defending the idea of teleology, just saying that epistemologically speaking, we have no basis for ruling it out nor accepting it.
- SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
  > Those examples don't prove much, they just demonstrate that any goal there could be is not aligned with the fate of those species. And the simplest explanation is that there is no goal at all. Claiming otherwise is an extraordinary claim, and you know what they say about those.
  - andreasvc 14y ago
    The preference for the simplest explanation is just a heuristic, there is no compelling philosophical argument why it should hold. Philosophers of science are still debating whether it is a valid heuristic; meanwhile, scientists don't invoke it all that much, I believe. They care about whether an explanation is right, not simple.
    - Retric 14y ago
      All philosophical arguments are meaningless. Five happy Moon's sang the Macarena. Truth is beauty. There is nothing grammatically wrong with those sentences, there is no way to philosophically disprove them, and they have nothing to do with the physical world around us. PS: I am not saying philosophy is useless, just it's a search for something other than meaning... perhaps truth. ;)
jbrechtel 14y ago
Definitely agreed about the lack of evidence for teleology among evolution, but I don't think false starts, extinct species, etc... are counter evidence to teleology really. They'd just be evidence of an imperfect process attempting to reach that goal. Having a destination in mind doesn't mean you know exactly how to get there, right?
- derleth 14y ago
  It seems like admitting a 'blind teleology' would relegate the argument to complete meaninglessness; a teleology that behaves as if it were random is not worth talking about.
  - jbrechtel 14y ago
    Does it have to be blind or random though? A path finding algorithm is clearly teleological, but also has false starts. That doesn't make it 'blind' or 'random'.

by derleth 14y ago

Alex3917 14y ago

"No. Teleology has a goal in mind and evolution has been seen to run down dead ends many, many times. All of the extinct species are dead ends." The best way I've heard it described is like dropping a marble into a bowl. The marble will go up and down and wobble around but will eventually settle at the bottom of the bowl. In other words, it would basically be encoded into the universe as a preference that over time would win out. "All of the extinct species. The fact the human eye has a blind spot whereas the squid eye does not." Just because not all matter in the universe is condensed into a single point doesn't mean that gravity doesn't exist. Sometimes things get further apart, sometimes things get closer together, but gravity still exists. "That mix of simplicity and increased predictive power makes the non-teleological theories a lot better than the previous teleological ones." I'm not arguing that teleology is a better scientific theory than evolution; it's not. But just because it's a crappy scientific theory (well, actually it's not even a theory) doesn't mean that it's less likely that there are some sort of teleological forces baked into the universe, e.g. a preference for the creation and preservation of novelty.

nitrogen 14y ago
It sounds like you're using analogies to "prove" your point, rather than using evidence to prove and analogies to illustrate. This is a very common theme in my experience with arguments in favor of an external force guiding evolution (and other unprovable subjects). If we're not careful, thinking by analogy can lead us to believing incorrectly that irrelevant attributes of the analogy actually apply to the universe.
- Alex3917 14y ago
  Except I'm not arguing in favor of an external force. Tokenadult said there was no external force, I said we can't know if there is an external force.
  - derleth 14y ago
    > I said we can't know if there is an external force. Can you know for sure you're not the Queen of England?
    - Alex3917 14y ago
      Depends on your definition of 'know'. There is an entire subfield of philosophy devoted to this question.

andreasvc 14y ago

> All of the extinct species. The fact the human eye has a blind spot whereas the squid eye does not. The fact cancer is possible. If I had a biology textbook closer to hand, I could go on at length. Those examples don't prove much, they just demonstrate that any goal there could be is not aligned with the fate of those species. You seem to be arguing against the assumption that teleology would imply some sort of perfection (for some somewhat arbitrary definition of perfection) The truth is that there is an epistemological problem here. For all we know, the universe was created by Mr. X who _wants_ us to think there is no teleology. Deception could be the very goal. There is absolutely no way for us to verify this, so there is also no reason to state categorically that there is no teleology. You could make an analogy with a (pseudo) random number generator. How do you distinguish between a real and a pseodo RNG? You can't, really. There are some statistical tests. But if someone is determined to fool you, they can just feed you X amount of GBs of data from a true random source, and only then start to feed you an infinite amount of zeroes. I'm of course not defending the idea of teleology, just saying that epistemologically speaking, we have no basis for ruling it out nor accepting it.

SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
> Those examples don't prove much, they just demonstrate that any goal there could be is not aligned with the fate of those species. And the simplest explanation is that there is no goal at all. Claiming otherwise is an extraordinary claim, and you know what they say about those.
- andreasvc 14y ago
  The preference for the simplest explanation is just a heuristic, there is no compelling philosophical argument why it should hold. Philosophers of science are still debating whether it is a valid heuristic; meanwhile, scientists don't invoke it all that much, I believe. They care about whether an explanation is right, not simple.
  - Retric 14y ago
    All philosophical arguments are meaningless. Five happy Moon's sang the Macarena. Truth is beauty. There is nothing grammatically wrong with those sentences, there is no way to philosophically disprove them, and they have nothing to do with the physical world around us. PS: I am not saying philosophy is useless, just it's a search for something other than meaning... perhaps truth. ;)

jbrechtel 14y ago

Definitely agreed about the lack of evidence for teleology among evolution, but I don't think false starts, extinct species, etc... are counter evidence to teleology really. They'd just be evidence of an imperfect process attempting to reach that goal. Having a destination in mind doesn't mean you know exactly how to get there, right?

derleth 14y ago
It seems like admitting a 'blind teleology' would relegate the argument to complete meaninglessness; a teleology that behaves as if it were random is not worth talking about.
- jbrechtel 14y ago
  Does it have to be blind or random though? A path finding algorithm is clearly teleological, but also has false starts. That doesn't make it 'blind' or 'random'.