At Evolution News: A Closer Look at the Science of Purpose

_{Eric Hedin

November 2, 2022

Darwinism, Intelligent Design}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

In an earlier post, I introduced and defined what I called the “science of purpose.” Let us take a closer look at what that entails.
The first thing to notice is that there really cannot be a science of organisms, i.e., biology, without understanding purpose. That this fact has been so neglected is, of course, a consequence of neo-Darwinism, which purports to show that purpose and design in life are only apparent, not real. Organisms that survive simply appear to be purpose-driven because those that are not driven by purpose suffer extinction as imposed by natural selection. Of course, this statement offers no explanation of how purpose-driven life arises.

Vast and Ubiquitous Purpose

Before saying why that’s the case, let us indulge in the great delight of observing the vast and ubiquitous display of purpose in the natural world that surrounds us. In biology we are dedicated to studying the behavior and physiology of all living things. Extraordinary examples of animal behavior include the 70-mile trek by some emperor penguins to feed their young, the 1,000-mile journey that sockeye salmon may navigate to return to the small stream of their birth in order to spawn and die, and the 3,000-mile annual migration of certain caribou in North America.

Photo: Sockeye salmon, by Milton Love, Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Yet as a physician I am equally if not more astounded by the dazzling display of goal-attainment that takes place in every human body in every second of life. Your heart has been pumping since a time about eight months before you were born. Your kidneys filter metabolic waste and retain life-sustaining fluid and electrolytes without fail and without interruption. The hemoglobin in your red blood cells procures, transports, and delivers life-giving oxygen to every corner of your body, every second of every day. And this can only happen because your lungs expand and contract, again without fail, ceaselessly, even while you sleep. Your body cannot survive outside of a very narrow range of temperatures and fluid and electrolyte concentrations. These are assiduously and jealously monitored, adjusted, and normalized. Without this oversight, your life would come to a rapid end.
Purpose is the sine qua non of life. It permeates every organism, in every ecosystem.

How Can Anyone Deny This?

The short answer is that biology grew up out of the physical sciences. Even Isaac Newton himself was at pains to eliminate purpose, i.e., teleology, from his science. But Newton’s motivation was entirely different from that of modern scientific atheists. Newton believed firmly in the reality of teleology and purpose, but he also believed that it was outside of the ability of the human mind to reduce God’s purposeful wisdom to scientific terms. Some 250 years after Newton, and following the success of the Industrial Revolution, 19th-century scientists began to see themselves as understanding the world without God’s help. Then along came Darwin. As we all know, he said that creatures survived and speciated based on the random and blind — that is, purposeless — actions of a thoroughly uncaring natural world. He made it all seem so simple: survival of the fittest was all there is to it.
Today, modern science embraces Darwin, in part because biologists want to be physicists, and also because it allows them to continue to leave God out. So the myth of Darwinism, in its new guise of neo-Darwinism, endures.
You cannot see what you are not looking for. You cannot find Br’er Rabbit until you look into the briar patch. Realizing that, we recognize that the entire edifice of Darwin’s theory is based on a single, demonstrable falsehood. Darwin looked at the natural world and observed organisms of every kind striving to survive, competing for food, shelter, and mating privilege. This was the struggle for existence at the core of his theory.

The Desire to Struggle

The struggle, however, depends on something else that Darwin didn’t see, something more fundamental. Antecedent to it is the desire to struggle, that is, to act in keeping with the organism’s purpose, to live. Only with this desire does the living thing then go out and fight for its life. The point may seem subtle but it really is not. If as we are told, life is ultimately purposeless and organisms have no innate purpose… then why struggle?
Simply put: Teleology, the purpose-driven innate property of life itself, precedes natural selection as the primary source of agency that explains evolution. Darwinism utterly misses this elementary fact.
Evolution News

Is it reasonable to say that an organism’s struggle to survive is an example of purposeful behavior? Can anyone identify a similar phenomenon outside of the realm of living things? Can the forces of nature produce a struggle to survive?

Comments

@15
Surely a statement which falls into the “there are no contradictions in Darwinian evolution, properly read, it predicts and accounts for everything; it just needs clarification on discrete issues,” argument. Though “basically” fine at the end has the appearance of an escape hatch.
I don't think there are contradictions within evolutionary theory. But I certainly don't think it predicts or explains everything! And yes, you're right to notice the "escape hatch" there. I placed it there because there are, among philosophers of biology, some interesting controversies and debates about how exactly to understand evolutionary theory. I don't comprehend all the details -- I'm a dilettante, not an expert! -- but the debates involve some pretty fine-grained distinctions and abstract reasoning. And while I know which views I think are right, I also recognize that lots of very good philosophers and theoretical biologists disagree with me.PyrrhoManiac1_{November 4, 2022
November
11
Nov
4
04
2022
08:51 AM
8
08
51
AM
PDT}

“ Not that it matters, but my own views on these issues are basically those of Steven Talbott: teleology is real, evolution presupposes it and can’t explain it, we need a different approach to explaining teleology, but evolutionary theory itself is basically fine.” Surely a statement which falls into the “there are no contradictions in Darwinian evolution, properly read, it predicts and accounts for everything; it just needs clarification on discrete issues,” argument. Though “basically” fine at the end has the appearance of an escape hatch.Belfast_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
02:31 PM
2
02
31
PM
PDT}

To support my claim that current mainstream Darwinian theory is STILL wedded to 'old school' materialism, I quote Jim Al-Khalili, who is an atheist,
Jim Al-Khalili, at the 2:30 minute mark of the following video states, ",, Physicists and Chemists have had a long time to try and get use to it (Quantum Mechanics). Biologists, on the other hand have got off lightly in my view. They are very happy with their balls and sticks models of molecules. The balls are the atoms. The sticks are the bonds between the atoms. And when they can't build them physically in the lab nowadays they have very powerful computers that will simulate a huge molecule.,, It doesn't really require much in the way of quantum mechanics in the way to explain it." At the 6:52 minute mark of the video, Jim Al-Khalili goes on to state: “To paraphrase, (Erwin Schrödinger in his book “What Is Life”), he says at the molecular level living organisms have a certain order. A structure to them that’s very different from the random thermodynamic jostling of atoms and molecules in inanimate matter of the same complexity. In fact, living matter seems to behave in its order and its structure just like inanimate cooled down to near absolute zero. Where quantum effects play a very important role. There is something special about the structure, about the order, inside a living cell. So Schrodinger speculated that maybe quantum mechanics plays a role in life”. Jim Al-Khalili – Quantum biology – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOzCkeTPR3Q
And in the following 2015 paper entitled, “Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules” it was found that “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” and the researchers further commented that “finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,,
Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules – Mar. 6, 2015 Excerpt: “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” they say. That’s a discovery that is as important as it is unexpected. “These findings suggest an entirely new and universal mechanism of conductance in biology very different from the one used in electrical circuits.” The permutations of possible energy levels of biomolecules is huge so the possibility of finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,, “what exactly is the advantage that criticality confers?” https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-origin-of-life-and-the-hidden-role-of-quantum-criticality-ca4707924552
To drive this point home, this follow up 2018 article stated that “There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,,”
Quantum Critical Proteins – Stuart Lindsay – Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Arizona State University – 2018 Excerpt: The difficulty with this proposal lies in its improbability. Only an infinitesimal density of random states exists near the critical point.,, Gábor Vattay et al. recently examined a number of proteins and conducting and insulating polymers.14 The distribution for the insulators and conductors were as expected, but the functional proteins all fell on the quantum-critical distribution. Such a result cannot be a consequence of chance.,,, WHAT OF quantum criticality? Vattay et al. carried out electronic structure calculations for the very large protein used in our work. They found that the distribution of energy-level spacings fell on exactly the quantum-critical distribution, implying that this protein is also quantum critical. There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,, http://inference-review.com/article/quantum-critical-proteins Gábor Vattay et al., “Quantum Criticality at the Origin of Life,” Journal of Physics: Conference Series 626 (2015); Gábor Vattay, Stuart Kauffman, and Samuli Niiranen, “Quantum Biology on the Edge of Quantum Chaos,” PLOS One 9, no. 3 (2014)
Of supplemental note
Oct. 2022 - So since Darwinian Atheists, as a foundational presupposition of their materialistic philosophy, (and not from any compelling scientific evidence mind you), deny the existence of souls, (and since the materialist’s denial of souls, (and God), has led to so much catastrophic disaster on human societies in the 20th century), then it is VERY important to ‘scientifically’ establish the existence of these ‘souls’ that are of incalculable worth, and that are equal, before God. https://uncommondescent.com/off-topic/what-must-we-do-when-the-foundations-are-being-destroyed/#comment-768496
Verse:
Mark 8:36-37 What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
bornagain77_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
08:49 AM
8
08
49
AM
PDT}

Aside from highly qualified people supporting the idea, I think the average person knows that bees do not go to bee school to learn how to build a beehive. Spiders do not go to spider school to learn how to spin their webs. Cats and dogs can do neither. The message is clear. These creatures were designed. They were given infused knowledge. And every one born after has the same knowledge. So, "evolution" cannot explain behaviors.relatd_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
08:10 AM
8
08
10
AM
PDT}

Seversky, Put a sock in it! Fair warning: I now own a multiple sock launcher. And I'm not afraid to use it.relatd_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
08:06 AM
8
08
06
AM
PDT}

"I don’t think that Darwinian evolution is based upon reductive materialism." Well you, and Weiner, are out of line with current mainstream evolutionary thought which STILL holds that information and consciousness are both 'emergent' from a materialistic basis. And in that vein Weiner's criticism against materialism still finds purchase. If ever mainstream Darwinism graduates to Weiner's more nuanced views of materialism', that would be an interesting debate to have. But for now, it is merely a hypothetical as we are still debating people who hold to 'quant' 17th century considerations about materialism. I'm glad that you, at least, have enough common sense to know that Darwinian theory, as it is currently formulated, is bankrupt. Perhaps it would be much more fitting for you to take your case of 'nuanced materialism' over to Jerry Coyne, P.Z. Myers's blogs, etc..., since they are the ones still arguing for 'old school' Darwinian materialism? Of note to Weiner jumping to conclusions of Bergson's considerations, "Bergson’s considerations" have been more than validated by advances in quantum mechanics
Einstein vs Bergson, science vs philosophy and the meaning of time – Wednesday 24 June 2015 Excerpt: The meeting of April 6 was supposed to be a cordial affair, though it ended up being anything but. ‘I have to say that day exploded and it was referenced over and over again in the 20th century,’ says Canales. ‘The key sentence was something that Einstein said: “The time of the philosophers did not exist.”’ It’s hard to know whether Bergson was expecting such a sharp jab. In just one sentence, Bergson’s notion of duration—a major part of his thesis on time—was dealt a mortal blow. As Canales reads it, the line was carefully crafted for maximum impact. ‘What he meant was that philosophers frequently based their stories on a psychological approach and [new] physical knowledge showed that these philosophical approaches were nothing more than errors of the mind.’ The night would only get worse. ‘This was extremely scandalous,’ says Canales. ‘Einstein had been invited by philosophers to speak at their society, and you had this physicist say very clearly that their time did not exist.’ Bergson was outraged, but the philosopher did not take it lying down. A few months later Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the law of photoelectric effect, an area of science that Canales noted, ‘hardly jolted the public’s imagination’. In truth, Einstein coveted recognition for his work on relativity. Bergson inflicted some return humiliation of his own. By casting doubt on Einstein’s theoretical trajectory, Bergson dissuaded the committee from awarding the prize for relativity. In 1922, the jury was still out on the correct interpretation of time. So began a dispute that festered for years and played into the larger rift between physics and philosophy, science and the humanities. Bergson was fond of saying that time was the experience of waiting for a lump of sugar to dissolve in a glass of water. It was a declaration that one could not talk about time without reference to human consciousness and human perception. Einstein would say that time is what clocks measure. Bergson would no doubt ask why we build clocks in the first place. ‘He argued that if we didn’t have a prior sense of time we wouldn’t have been led to build clocks and we wouldn’t even use them … unless we wanted to go places and to events that mattered,’ says Canales. ‘You can see that their points of view were very different.’ In a theoretical nutshell this expressed perfectly the division between lived time and spacetime: subjective experience versus objective reality.,,, Just when Einstein thought he had it worked out, along came the discovery of quantum theory and with it the possibility of a Bergsonian universe of indeterminacy and change. God did, it seems, play dice with the universe, contra to Einstein’s famous aphorism. Some supporters went as far as to say that Bergson’s earlier work anticipated the quantum revolution of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg by four decades or more. Canales quotes the literary critic Andre Rousseaux, writing at the time of Bergson’s death. ‘The Bergson revolution will be doubled by a scientific revolution that, on its own, would have demanded the philosophical revolution that Bergson led, even if he had not done it.’ Was Bergson right after all? Time will tell. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/science-vs-philosophy-and-the-meaning-of-time/6539568 “Can physics demonstrate the existence of ‘the now’ in order to make the notion of ‘now’ into a scientifically valid term?” Rudolf Carnap - Philosopher Einstein’s answer was ‘categorical’, he said: “The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.” Einstein The specific statement that Einstein made to Carnap on the train, “The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.” was a very interesting statement for Einstein to make to the philosopher since “The experience of ‘the now’ has, from many recent experiments in quantum mechanics, established itself as very much being a defining part of our physical measurements in quantum mechanics. For instance, the following delayed choice experiment with atoms demonstrated that, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” Reality doesn’t exist until we measure it, (Delayed Choice with atoms) quantum experiment confirms – Mind = blown. – FIONA MACDONALD – 1 JUN 2015 Excerpt: “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” lead researcher and physicist Andrew Truscott said in a press release. "Quantum physics predictions about interference seem odd enough when applied to light, which seems more like a wave, but to have done the experiment with atoms, which are complicated things that have mass and interact with electric fields and so on, adds to the weirdness," said Roman Khakimov, a PhD student who worked on the experiment.,,, http://www.sciencealert.com/reality-doesn-t-exist-until-we-measure-it-quantum-experiment-confirms New Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It - June 3, 2015 Excerpt: Some particles, such as photons or electrons, can behave both as particles and as waves. Here comes a question of what exactly makes a photon or an electron act either as a particle or a wave. This is what Wheeler’s experiment asks: at what point does an object ‘decide’? The results of the Australian scientists’ experiment, which were published in the journal Nature Physics, show that this choice is determined by the way the object is measured, which is in accordance with what quantum theory predicts. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Truscott in a press release.,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,” he said. Thus, this experiment adds to the validity of the quantum theory and provides new evidence to the idea that reality doesn’t exist without an observer. http://themindunleashed.org/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html Likewise, the following violation of Leggett's inequality stressed the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we're not observing it. Quantum physics says goodbye to reality - Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell's thought experiment, Leggett's inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we're not observing it. "Our study shows that 'just' giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics," Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. "You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism." http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640 Observer-dependent locality of quantum events Philippe Allard Guérin and ?aslav Brukner - 25 October 2018 Excerpt: In general relativity, the causal structure between events is dynamical, but it is definite and observer-independent; events are point-like and the membership of an event A in the future or past light-cone of an event B is an observer-independent statement. When events are defined with respect to quantum systems however, nothing guarantees that the causal relationship between A and B is definite. We propose to associate a causal reference frame corresponding to each event, which can be interpreted as an observer-dependent time according to which an observer describes the evolution of quantum systems. In the causal reference frame of one event, this particular event is always localised, but other events can be 'smeared out' in the future and in the past. We do not impose a predefined causal order between the events, but only require that descriptions from different reference frames obey a global consistency condition. We show that our new formalism is equivalent to the pure process matrix formalism (Araújo et al 2017 Quantum 1 10). The latter is known to predict certain multipartite correlations, which are incompatible with the assumption of a causal ordering of the events—these correlations violate causal inequalities. We show how the causal reference frame description can be used to gain insight into the question of realisability of such strongly non-causal processes in laboratory experiments. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/aae742/meta The Mind First and/or Theistic implications of quantum experiments such as the preceding are fairly, and pleasantly, obvious. As Professor Scott Aaronson of MIT once quipped, “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists,,, But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!” “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!” – Scott Aaronson – MIT associate Professor quantum computation – Lecture 11: Decoherence and Hidden Variables
bornagain77_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
07:57 AM
7
07
57
AM
PDT}

@7
And as usual, even though it has been pointed out many times, you all refuse to acknowledge there is a difference between “purpose” and “function”. You choose “purpose” because it implies conscious intent in the mind of an intelligent agent and, let’s be clear, that agent is not some amorphous designer but your God.
I agree that there's a need to distinguish between functions and purposes, but disagree that purpose entails conscious intent. (It may have that association for some people, but associations are not entailments.) On my view, functions are assigned to sub-organismal systems and their components: the circulatory system has the function of exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide, the digestive system has the function of extracting nutrients from food, the nervous system has the function of guiding and controlling behavior. (Of course a system can have more than one function!) What makes something a function depends on how it contributes to the goals of the organism. Organisms have goals based on their needs: what an organism needs to do in order to live then determines the goals that it has, and it will very often act purposively in order to meet those goals and satisfy those needs. So while I agree that we need to distinguish between functions and goals or purposes, I don't think we can dispense with the latter and still explain biological phenomena.PyrrhoManiac1_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
07:16 AM
7
07
16
AM
PDT}

Cybernetics’ is most definitely NOT compatible with the reductive materialism that Darwinian evolution is based upon.
I don't think that Darwinian evolution is based upon reductive materialism. Regardless, Wiener pretty clear thinks that cybernetics expands the scope of "materialism" to include information, not that it rejects materialism. I think this quote makes the point more clearly:
Thus the modern automaton exists in the same sort of Bergsonian time as the living organism; and hence there is no reason in Bergson's considerations why the essential mode of functioning of the organism should not be the same as that of the automaton of this type. Vitalism has won to the extent that even mechanisms correspond to the time-structure of vitalism; but as we have said, this victory is a complete defeat, for from every point of view which has the slightest relation to morality or to religion, the new mechanism is fully as mechanistic as the old. Whether we should call the new point of view materialistic is largely a question of words: the ascendancy of matter characterizes a phase of nineteenth-century physics far more than the present age, and 'materialism' has come to be but little more than a loose synonym for 'mechanism'. In fact, the whole mechanist-vitalist controversy has been relegated to the limbo of badly posed questions. (Cybernetics, p. 44)
There's a separate question to whether cybernetics actually succeeded in naturalizing teleology. (I think it failed, but it failed in interesting and instructive ways.) @6
“The ‘programmer’ of the genetic program is, of course, natural selection." This statement is beyond ludicrous.
Fair enough, though I was describing Mayr's own views, not endorsing them. Not that it matters, but my own views on these issues are basically those of Steven Talbott: teleology is real, evolution presupposes it and can't explain it, we need a different approach to explaining teleology, but evolutionary theory itself is basically fine.PyrrhoManiac1_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
07:02 AM
7
07
02
AM
PDT}

Seversky, where you been buddy??? I was worried that you were sick or something. But anyways, as to you accusing me of confusing things, I merely note that, for all intents and 'purposes' this is an instance of "the pot calling the kettle black". ,,, Which is par for the course for you. :)bornagain77_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
06:44 AM
6
06
44
AM
PDT}

Bornagain77/2
As to the question of: “Can anyone identify a similar phenomenon (of teleology) outside of the realm of living things?” Dr. Michael Egnor has pointed out that, “The behavior of a single electron orbiting a proton is teleological, because the motion of the electron hews to specific ends (according to quantum mechanics). A pencil falling to the floor behaves teleologically (it does not fall up, or burst into flame, etc.). Purposeful arrangement of parts is teleology on an even more sophisticated scale, but teleology exists in even the most basic processes in nature. Physics is no less teleological than biology.”
And as usual, even though it has been pointed out many times, you all refuse to acknowledge there is a difference between "purpose" and "function". You choose "purpose" because it implies conscious intent in the mind of an intelligent agent and, let's be clear, that agent is not some amorphous designer but your God.Seversky_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
06:36 AM
6
06
36
AM
PDT}

"The ‘programmer’ of the genetic program is, of course, natural selection." This statement is beyond ludicrous. As I pointed out yesterday,,,, https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-reasons-org-i-think-therefore-it-must-be-true-part-2-the-science-of-certainty/#comment-769178 ,,,, "it does not take much in the way of every-day common sense to know, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the “Death as the Creator”, (eliminating the 'unfit' via Natural Selection), of Darwinian evolution can’t possibly be true. For example, imagine trying to write code for a computer program by throwing away all computers that had a programming glitch/error in them, and only keeping those computers that had a minor improvement in programming. Clearly, it is beyond ludicrous to believe that such a grossly inefficient process of trying to write programming language for a computer could ever generate the multiple overlapping layers of coding that is now found in DNA. And lest I be accused of ‘confirmation bias’ and/or ‘jumping to conclusions’, when we drill down into the technical details we find that, “Our analysis confirms mathematically what would seem intuitively obvious – multiple overlapping codes within the genome must radically change our expectations regarding the rate of beneficial mutations. As the number of overlapping codes increases, the rate of potential beneficial mutation decreases exponentially, quickly approaching zero.”
Multiple Overlapping Genetic Codes Profoundly Reduce the Probability of Beneficial Mutation George Montañez 1, Robert J. Marks II 2, Jorge Fernandez 3 and John C. Sanford 4 – published online May 2013 Excerpt: In the last decade, we have discovered still another aspect of the multi- dimensional genome. We now know that DNA sequences are typically “ poly-functional” [38]. Trifanov previously had described at least 12 genetic codes that any given nucleotide can contribute to [39,40], and showed that a given base-pair can contribute to multiple overlapping codes simultaneously. The first evidence of overlapping protein-coding sequences in viruses caused quite a stir, but since then it has become recognized as typical. According to Kapronov et al., “it is not unusual that a single base-pair can be part of an intricate network of multiple isoforms of overlapping sense and antisense transcripts, the majority of which are unannotated” [41]. The ENCODE project [42] has confirmed that this phenomenon is ubiquitous in higher genomes, wherein a given DNA sequence routinely encodes multiple overlapping messages, meaning that a single nucleotide can contribute to two or more genetic codes. Most recently, Itzkovitz et al. analyzed protein coding regions of 700 species, and showed that virtually all forms of life have extensive overlapping information in their genomes [43].,,,, Conclusions: Our analysis confirms mathematically what would seem intuitively obvious – multiple overlapping codes within the genome must radically change our expectations regarding the rate of beneficial mutations. As the number of overlapping codes increases, the rate of potential beneficial mutation decreases exponentially, quickly approaching zero. Therefore the new evidence for ubiquitous overlapping codes in higher genomes strongly indicates that beneficial mutations should be extremely rare. This evidence combined with increasing evidence that biological systems are highly optimized, and evidence that only relatively high-impact beneficial mutations can be effectively amplified by natural selection, lead us to conclude that mutations which are both selectable and unambiguously beneficial must be vanishingly rare. This conclusion raises serious questions. How might such vanishingly rare beneficial mutations ever be sufficient for genome building? How might genetic degeneration ever be averted, given the continuous accumulation of low impact deleterious mutations? http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0006 ‘It’s becoming extremely problematic to explain how the genome could arise and how these multiple levels of overlapping information could arise, since our best computer programmers can’t even conceive of overlapping codes. The genome dwarfs all of the computer information technology that man has developed. So I think that it is very problematic to imagine how you can achieve that through random changes in the code.,,, and there is no Junk DNA in these codes. More and more the genome looks likes a super-super set of programs.,, More and more it looks like top down design and not just bottom up chance discovery of making complex systems.’ – Dr. John Sanford – Inventor of the ‘Gene Gun’ – 31 second mark – video https://youtu.be/YemLbrCdM_s?t=30
i.e. Darwinists simply have 'less than zero' empirical evidence that 'natural selection can function as a "programmer substitute", much less function as a 'designer substitute'.
The waiting time problem in a model hominin population – 2015 Sep 17 John Sanford, Wesley Brewer, Franzine Smith, and John Baumgardner Excerpt: the waiting time for the fixation of a “string-of-one” is by itself problematic (Table 2). Waiting a minimum of 1.5 million years (realistically, much longer), for a single point mutation is not timely adaptation in the face of any type of pressing evolutionary challenge. This is especially problematic when we consider that it is estimated that it only took six million years for the chimp and human genomes to diverge by over 5 % [1]. ,,, While fixing one point mutation is problematic, our simulations show that the fixation of two co-dependent mutations is extremely problematic – requiring at least 84 million years (Table 2). This is ten-fold longer than the estimated time required for ape-to-man evolution.,,, Certainly the creation and fixation of a string of three (requiring at least 380 million years) would be extremely untimely (and trivial in effect), in terms of the evolution of modern man. ,,, When we increase the hominin population from 10,000 to 1 million (our current upper limit for these types of experiments), the waiting time for creating a string of five is only reduced from two billion to 482 million years. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4573302/ “Darwinism provided an explanation for the appearance of design, and argued that there is no Designer — or, if you will, the designer is natural selection. If that’s out of the way — if that (natural selection) just does not explain the evidence — then the flip side of that is, well, things appear designed because they are designed.” Richard Sternberg – Living Waters documentary Whale Evolution vs. Population Genetics – Richard Sternberg and Paul Nelson – (excerpt from Living Waters video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0csd3M4bc0Q
Shoot, Darwinian evolution, (via rigorous analysis by Robert Marks and company), does not even qualify as a 'hard science',,
Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – Robert J. Marks II – June 12, 2017 Excerpt: “There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/ Robert Jackson Marks II is an American electrical engineer. His contributions include the Zhao-Atlas-Marks (ZAM) time-frequency distribution in the field of signal processing,[1] the Cheung–Marks theorem[2] in Shannon sampling theory and the Papoulis-Marks-Cheung (PMC) approach in multidimensional sampling.[3] He was instrumental in the defining of the field of computational intelligence and co-edited the first book using computational intelligence in the title.[4][5] – per wikipedia
bornagain77_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
06:30 AM
6
06
30
AM
PDT}

'Cybernetics' is most definitely NOT compatible with the reductive materialism that Darwinian evolution is based upon. Just ask Norbert Weiner who coined the term,
Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) Norbert Wiener created the modern field of control and communication systems, utilizing concepts like negative feedback. His seminal 1948 book Cybernetics both defined and named the new field.,,, “The mechanical brain does not secrete thought “as the liver does bile,” as the earlier materialists claimed, nor does it put it out in the form of energy, as the muscle puts out its activity. Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day. “ - Norbert Weiner - MIT Mathematician - (Cybernetics, 2nd edition, p.132) http://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/wiener/?
bornagain77_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
06:19 AM
6
06
19
AM
PDT}

Somehow, a combination of proteins assembled that led to a survival characteristic of every living entity. Is there any species, single celled or multicellular that does not have it? Should be testable. Aside: have there been any knock out experiments to determine what is necessary for life? One of the claims of the pro natural Evolution crowd is that all living organisms while obviously different on most proteins contain the same subset of proteins. It should be there.jerry_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
05:34 AM
5
05
34
AM
PDT}

From the OP:
Teleology, the purpose-driven innate property of life itself, precedes natural selection as the primary source of agency that explains evolution. Darwinism utterly misses this elementary fact.
The claim that Darwinism eliminated teleology from biology -- or at least attempted to -- is widespread amongst historians and philosophers of biology. Yet I think it is not entirely correct -- it puts the emphasis in the wrong place and leads to a misunderstanding not only of what Darwin himself did, but also a misunderstanding of what's happening in contemporary theoretical biology. The 19th century saw a major resurgence of teleological thinking in the biological sciences. This was largely due to the impact of Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790). In that book, Kant distinguished between the teleology of organisms and the teleology of artifacts. Artifacts have an external teleology, because they are designed by an intelligence to serve some function -- the source of their purpose lies outside of them. Organisms have internal teleology, because their purposefulness comes from within their own activity as self-maintaining unified wholes. This conception of organisms as having internal teleology inspired whole generations of German philosophers and biologists. One of them was Alexander von Humboldt, who was a major influence on Charles Darwin. A close reading of Origin of Species shows his Humboldtian philosophy of nature with this use of "organization". For Darwin, evolution by natural selection is a consequence of the internal teleology of organisms. (Cf chapter 14 of Robert Richards's The Romantic Conception of Life. Richards has a co-authored book with Michael Ruse, Debating Darwin, that I also recommend.) So where comes this idea that Darwinism eliminated teleology? There are at least two distinct sources for this idea. The rise of the mechanistic worldview in the 17th century entailed that organisms were no longer teleologically organized. But only a few radical thinkers denied teleology entirely. Most of them reached back to the Stoic idea of providence: there is a teleological organization of the entire universe, even if organisms themselves are just complicated machines. The rise of the mechanistic world-view and the displacement of teleology from organisms to the universe -- from biological teleology to cosmic teleology -- went hand-in-hand. (This also affected the early modern conception of God.) Darwin's major insight can therefore be put as follows: if biological teleology is real, then there is no need for cosmic teleology. So what happened to Darwin's project of putting the biological teleology of Aristotle and Kant on the gold standard of empirical natural history? Where did this idea arise that Darwinism is anti-teleological? This leads us to the second major influence on how we understand Darwinism: cybernetics. The project of cybernetics, beginning in the 1940s, was to understand the mechanistic basis of teleology. (The Macy Conferences in Cybernetics were at first called the Macy Conferences in Teleological Mechanisms and Circular Causality.) The basic idea was that feedback loops could explain in mechanistic terms everything that seemed to be teleological (cf. "Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology" by Rosenblueth, Wiener, and Bigelow, 1943). Cybernetics had a huge, disparate cultural impact -- it is in many ways the defining science of the 20th century. With regard to biology, cybernetics influenced how Ernst Mayr thought about teleology. It was cybernetics that led Mayr to distinguish between teleology and "teleonomy". (Mayr did not coin the word "teleonomy" but he popularized it.) In Mayr's view, the root of biological teleology lies in "the genetic program" -- and he was quite clear about looking to cybernetics and computer theory in his idea of using the program metaphor to understand genetics. The 'programmer' of the genetic program is, of course, natural selection. In other words, it is the Modern Synthesis, and not Darwin's original work, that aspired to eliminate teleology from biology. In the past twenty years, several theoretical biologists and philosophers of biology have argued that we need to vindicate teleology in biology in order for Darwin's own project to succeed at all. This would include Brian Goodwin, Francisco Varela, Denis Walsh, Maël Montévil, Alvaro Moreno, Matteo Mossio, Leonardo Bich, and Terrence Deacon.PyrrhoManiac1_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
05:20 AM
5
05
20
AM
PDT}

As to the question of: "Can anyone identify a similar phenomenon (of teleology) outside of the realm of living things?" Dr. Michael Egnor has pointed out that, "The behavior of a single electron orbiting a proton is teleological, because the motion of the electron hews to specific ends (according to quantum mechanics). A pencil falling to the floor behaves teleologically (it does not fall up, or burst into flame, etc.). Purposeful arrangement of parts is teleology on an even more sophisticated scale, but teleology exists in even the most basic processes in nature. Physics is no less teleological than biology."
Teleology and the Mind - Michael Egnor - August 16, 2016 Excerpt: In this sense, eliminative materialism is necessary if a materialist is to maintain a non-teleological Darwinian metaphysical perspective. It is purpose that must be denied in order to deny design in nature. So the mind, as well as teleology, must be denied. Eliminative materialism is just Darwinian metaphysics carried to its logical end and applied to man. If there is no teleology, there is no intentionality, and there is no purpose in nature nor in man’s thoughts.,,,, Teleology and intentionality are certainly the inferences to be drawn from the obvious purposeful arrangement of parts in nature, but I (as a loyal Thomist!) believe that teleology and intentionality are manifest in an even more fundamental way in nature. Any goal-directed natural change is teleological, even if purpose and arrangement of parts is not clearly manifest. The behavior of a single electron orbiting a proton is teleological, because the motion of the electron hews to specific ends (according to quantum mechanics). A pencil falling to the floor behaves teleologically (it does not fall up, or burst into flame, etc.). Purposeful arrangement of parts is teleology on an even more sophisticated scale, but teleology exists in even the most basic processes in nature. Physics is no less teleological than biology. https://evolutionnews.org/2016/08/teleology_and_t/
And as Dr. Egnor pointed out elsewhere, “No explanation of nature — not in biology or physics or in any natural science — makes sense without recourse to final causes. Final cause – teleology — is the cause of causes.”
Philosopher in NY Times: The Universe Has No Purpose, But We Can Pretend… Michael Egnor – August 8, 2017 Excerpt: Teleology and Aristotelian metaphysics came roaring back in the early 20th century with quantum mechanics and relativity. And quantum mechanics is not the most striking example of teleology in science. Biological science is simply not possible without constant invocation of teleology. Biologists cannot even begin to understand DNA or mitochondria or hearts or brains or enzymes without inference to the goal or natural end of the thing. Biological science is not merely aided by inference to teleology. It cannot be done without profound and deliberate investigation of the telos of biological molecules and organs. “What is it for” is the fundamental and inescapable question in all biological research. No explanation of nature — not in biology or physics or in any natural science — makes sense without recourse to final causes. Final cause – teleology — is the cause of causes. https://evolutionnews.org/2017/08/the-universe-has-no-purpose-but-we-can-pretend/
So yes, I would definitely say that teleology exists "outside of the realm of living things". As Dr. Egnor stated elsewhere, "Purpose cannot arise from nothing. Man can have no purpose unless the universe has purpose."
How Is Purpose Related to Teleology in Nature? Michael Egnor - August 9, 2017 Excerpt: Causes are ontologically related to effects. If purposes exist in us, then purposes must be found in our efficient cause — the universe itself. Purpose cannot arise from nothing. Man can have no purpose unless the universe has purpose. https://evolutionnews.org/2017/08/how-is-purpose-related-to-teleology-in-nature/
So thus Darwin's theory, and indeed the whole of Atheistic Naturalism is undermined by the existence of purpose, i.e. teleology, in living organisms, as well as in nature as a whole, as well as in the purpose in man's own thoughts. Of further note, just as Darwin's 'natural selection' is undermined by the teleologically based, 'struggle to survive' itself, so to is Darwin's "chance" undermined by the necessary presupposition, and/or existence, of 'design'.
Evolution Presupposes Intelligent Design: Case of the Coronavirus – Michael Egnor – April 7, 2020 Excerpt: Aristotle saw this in his definition of chance in nature — chance is the accidental conjunction of purposeful events. Without purpose there can be no chance. His example is instructive: he considered a farmer who ploughs his field and by chance discovers a treasure buried by someone else. The treasure is discovered by chance, but everything else — the farmer’s ownership of the field, his decision to plough it, the accumulation and burial of the treasure by the other man — is purposeful, and in fact the only reason the accident of discovery happened is because it is embedded in a world of purpose. Chance can’t happen — the word has no meaning — in an entirely accidental world. Chance presupposes design. https://evolutionnews.org/2020/04/evolution-presupposes-design-the-case-of-covid-19/
In fact, as Wolfgang Pauli himself pointed out, the Darwinists's attempt to define chance outside the "concept of purposesiveness" makes them "very irrational" since they 'use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability", but instead use the word chance in a way that is "more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’”
Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science – Harald Atmanspacher Excerpt: “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28) https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/234f/4989e039089fed5ac47c7d1a19b656c602e2.pdf
So thus both of Charles Darwin's pillars, i.e. natural selection and chance, are both undercut by the fact that purpose, (and/or teleology), i.e. design, is antecedent to the existence of natural selection and is also antecedent to the existence of chance itself. In short, (in order to even define natural selection and chance), Darwin's theory is forced to presuppose the existence of teleology, purpose, and/or design. And this is, obviously, before it can even begin to try to make an argument against teleology, purpose, and/or design with Darwin's postulates of natural selection and chance.. As Cornelius van Til noted, just as a little child must sit in a father's lap in order to be able to slap the father in the face, so to is the atheist forced to sit in God's 'intelligible' universe, (that has been redeemed by Christ), in order to be able slap God in the face.
“The ultimate source of truth in any field rests in him. The world may discover much truth without owning Christ as Truth. Christ upholds even those who ignore, deny, and oppose him. A little child may slap his father in the face, but it can do so only because the father holds it on his knee. So modern science, modern philosophy, and modern theology may discover much truth. Nevertheless, if the universe were not created and redeemed by Christ no man could give himself an intelligible account of anything. It follows that in order to perform their task aright the scientist and the philosopher as well as the theologian need Christ.” – Cornelius Van Til, The Case for Calvinism p.147-148 Acts 17:28 For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
bornagain77_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
03:57 AM
3
03
57
AM
PDT}

As to: "Is it reasonable to say that an organism’s struggle to survive is an example of purposeful behavior?" Well, even wikipedia itself, no friend of Intelligent Design, honestly admitted that, “The presence of real or apparent teleology in explanations of natural selection is a controversial aspect of the philosophy of biology, not least for its echoes of natural theology.”
(The irresolved problem of) Teleology in biology 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. ,,, Nevertheless, biologists still often write about evolution as if organisms had goals, and some philosophers of biology such as Francisco Ayala and biologists such as J. B. S. Haldane consider that teleological language is unavoidable in evolutionary biology.,,, Teleology Main article: Teleology Teleology, from Greek, telos “end, purpose”[3] and , logia, “a branch of learning”, was coined by the philosopher Christian von Wolff in 1728.[4] The concept derives from the ancient Greek philosophy of Aristotle, where the final cause (the purpose) of a thing is its function.[5] However, Aristotle’s biology does not envisage evolution by natural selection.[6] Phrases used by biologists like “a function of … is to …” or “is designed for” are teleological at least in language. The presence of real or apparent teleology in explanations of natural selection is a controversial aspect of the philosophy of biology, not least for its echoes of natural theology.[1][7] Natural Theology,,, Natural theology presented forms of the teleological argument or argument from design, namely that organs functioned well for their apparent purpose, so they were well-designed, so they must have been designed by a benevolent creator. For example, the eye had the function of seeing, and contained features like the iris and lens that assisted with seeing; therefore, ran the argument, it had been designed for that purpose.[9][10][11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology_in_biology
Moreover, and under the auspice of 'struggle to survive', it is also reasonable to say that “Reproduction, growth, feeding, healing, courtship, parental care for the young — these and many other activities of organisms are goal-directed”
The Organism’s Story - Stephen L. Talbott - January 2019 Excerpt: Organisms are purposive (“teleological”) beings. Nothing could be more obvious. The fact of the matter is so indisputable that even those who don’t believe it really do believe it. Philosopher of biology Robert Arp speaks for biology as a whole when he writes, "Thinkers cannot seem to get around [evolutionary biologist Robert] Trivers’ claim that “even the humblest creature, say, a virus, appears organized to do something; it acts as if it is trying to achieve some purpose”, or [political philosopher Larry] Arnhart’s observation that . . . “Reproduction, growth, feeding, healing, courtship, parental care for the young — these and many other activities of organisms are goal-directed”.1",,, Others have commented on this strange reluctance (of Darwinists) to acknowledge fully the purposiveness that is there for all to see. The philosopher of science, Karl Popper, said that “The fear of using teleological terms reminds me of the Victorian fear of speaking about sex”.2 Popper may have had in mind a famous remark by his friend and twentieth-century British evolutionary theorist, J. B. S. Haldane, who once quipped that “Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist; he cannot live without her but he’s unwilling to be seen with her in public”.3,,, Regarding our theory of evolution: If, in reality, every organism’s existence is a live, moment-by-moment, improvisational storytelling — a creative and adaptive, irreversible narrative that is always progressing coherently and contextually from challenge to response, from initiative to outcome, from nascence to renascence, from immaturity through maturity to regeneration — then an evolutionary theory rooted in notions of random variation and mindlessness is a theory hanging upon a great question mark. “The answer to the question of what status teleology should have in biology” — so the influential biologist and philosopher Francisco Varela came to see at the end of his life — determines “the character of our whole theory of animate nature”.13 http://www.natureinstitute.org/txt/st/org/comm/ar/2019/story_36.htm
Moreover, as several people have pointed out, biologists can't even do their research into biology without 'illegitimately' using words that directly imply teleology, In the following article, Stephen Talbott points out that it is impossible to describe the complexities of biological life without illegitimately using language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness (i.e. teleology). He even challenges readers to “take up a challenge: pose a single topic for biological research, doing so in language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness 1.”
The ‘Mental Cell’: Let’s Loosen Up Biological Thinking! – Stephen L. Talbott – September 9, 2014 Excerpt: Many biologists are content to dismiss the problem with hand-waving: “When we wield the language of agency, we are speaking metaphorically, and we could just as well, if less conveniently, abandon the metaphors”. Yet no scientist or philosopher has shown how this shift of language could be effected. And the fact of the matter is just obvious: the biologist who is not investigating how the organism achieves something in a well-directed way is not yet doing biology, as opposed to physics or chemistry. Is this in turn just hand-waving? Let the reader inclined to think so take up a challenge: pose a single topic for biological research, doing so in language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness 1. One reason this cannot be done is clear enough: molecular biology — the discipline that was finally going to reduce life unreservedly to mindless mechanism — is now posing its own severe challenges. In this era of Big Data, the message from every side concerns previously unimagined complexity, incessant cross-talk and intertwining pathways, wildly unexpected genomic performances, dynamic conformational changes involving proteins and their cooperative or antagonistic binding partners, pervasive multifunctionality, intricately directed behavior somehow arising from the interaction of countless players in interpenetrating networks, and opposite effects by the same molecules in slightly different contexts. The picture at the molecular level begins to look as lively and organic — and thoughtful — as life itself. http://natureinstitute.org/txt/st/org/comm/ar/2014/mental_cell_23.htm
Likewise, Denis Noble also notes that “it is virtually impossible to speak of living beings for any length of time without using teleological and normative language”.
“the most striking thing about living things, in comparison with non-living systems, is their teleological organization—meaning the way in which all of the local physical and chemical interactions cohere in such a way as to maintain the overall system in existence. Moreover, it is virtually impossible to speak of living beings for any length of time without using teleological and normative language—words like “goal,” “purpose,” “meaning,” “correct/incorrect,” “success/failure,” etc.” – Denis Noble – Emeritus Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics of the Medical Sciences Division of the University of Oxford. http://www.thebestschools.org/dialogues/evolution-denis-noble-interview/
This working biologist agrees with both Talbott and Noble’s assessment and states, “in our work, we biologists use words that imply intentionality, functionality, strategy, and design in biology–we simply cannot avoid them.”
Life, Purpose, Mind: Where the Machine Metaphor Fails – Ann Gauger – June 2011 Excerpt: "I’m a working biologist, on bacterial regulation (transcription and translation and protein stability) through signalling molecules, ,,, I can confirm the following points as realities: we lack adequate conceptual categories for what we are seeing in the biological world; with many additional genomes sequenced annually, we have much more data than we know what to do with (and making sense of it has become the current challenge); cells are staggeringly chock full of sophisticated technologies, which are exquisitely integrated; life is not dominated by a single technology, but rather a composite of many; and yet life is more than the sum of its parts; in our work, we biologists use words that imply intentionality, functionality, strategy, and design in biology–we simply cannot avoid them. Furthermore, I suggest that to maintain that all of biology is solely a product of selection and genetic decay and time requires a metaphysical conviction that isn’t troubled by the evidence. Alternatively, it could be the view of someone who is unfamiliar with the evidence, for one reason or another. But for those who will consider the evidence that is so obvious throughout biology, I suggest it’s high time we moved on." – Matthew http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/life_purpose_mind_where_the_ma046991.html#comment-8858161
And as the following study found, “teleological concepts cannot be abstracted away from biological explanations without loss of meaning and explanatory power, life is inherently teleological.”
Metaphor and Meaning in the Teleological Language of Biology Annie L. Crawford – August 2020 Abstract: Excerpt: However, most discussions regarding the legitimacy of teleological language in biology fail to consider the nature of language itself. Since conceptual language is intrinsically metaphorical, teleological language can be dismissed as decorative if and only if it can be replaced with alternative metaphors without loss of essential meaning. I conclude that, since teleological concepts cannot be abstracted away from biological explanations without loss of meaning and explanatory power, life is inherently teleological. https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/biologists-cant-stop-using-purpose-driven-language-because-life-really-is-designed/
Moreover, not only can teleological concepts not be “abstracted away from biological explanations without loss of meaning and explanatory power”, purposeless Darwinian language can be readily jettisoned from research papers without negatively impacting the papers. As the late Philip Sell noted, “I found that Darwin’s theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss. In the peer-reviewed literature, the word “evolution” often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for “evolution” some other word – “Buddhism,” “Aztec cosmology,” or even “creationism.” I found that the substitution never touched the paper’s core.”
“Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin’s theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No. I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin’s theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss. In the peer-reviewed literature, the word “evolution” often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for “evolution” some other word – “Buddhism,” “Aztec cosmology,” or even “creationism.” I found that the substitution never touched the paper’s core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.,,, Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology.” – Philip S. Skell – (the late) Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. – Why Do We Invoke Darwin? – 2005 http://www.discovery.org/a/2816
In fact, removing ‘purposeless’ Darwinian language from research papers actually makes the science of the research papers “healthier and more useful”.
No Harm, No Foul — What If Darwinism Were Excised from Biology? – December 4, 2019 Excerpt: If Darwinism is as essential to biology as Richard Dawkins or Jerry Coyne argues, then removing evolutionary words and concepts, (“Darwin-ectomy”), should make research incomprehensible. If, on the other hand, Darwinism is more of a “narrative gloss” applied to the conclusions after the scientific work is done, as the late Philip Skell observed, then biology would survive the operation just fine. It might even be healthier, slimmed down after disposing of unnecessary philosophical baggage.,,, So, here are three papers in America’s premier science journal that appear at first glance to need Darwinism, use Darwinism, support Darwinism, and thereby impart useful scientific knowledge. After subjecting them to Darwin-ectomies, though, the science not only survived, but proved healthier and more useful. https://evolutionnews.org/2019/12/no-harm-no-foul-what-if-darwinism-were-excised-from-biology/
Thus, the fact that Darwinists themselves are vitally dependent on words that directly imply teleology, i.e. goal directed purpose, (and the fact that the 'narrative gloss' of Darwinian explanations can be readily jettisoned from scientific papers without loss of explanatory power), falsifies Darwinian evolution in the most fundamental way possible. Or at least it falsifies Darwinian evolution in the most fundamental way possible if Darwinists want to maintain that their words have any meaning in the first place.
Matthew 12:37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
bornagain77_{November 3, 2022
November
11
Nov
3
03
2022
03:53 AM
3
03
53
AM
PDT}

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Vast and Ubiquitous Purpose

How Can Anyone Deny This?

The Desire to Struggle

Leave a Reply