Abstract
Descartes proposed that animals are really machines, a view accepted by natural theologians who sought to reveal the wisdom of the Deity in the adaptations they discovered in animals and plants. Hume showed that there can be no logically coherent evidence that anything in the natural world possesses designed properties and that if, indeed, natural objects were designed, there could be no independent criteria by which the underlying principles of design could be revealed.
The modern theory of evolution explicitly states that evolution depends on chance events and to this extent evolution is contingently not a designing process; but evolution is necessarily not a designing process, as Hume’s arguments, which are as true in the context of evolutionary design as they are in the theological one, prove. Nevertheless, arguments about design in animals have persisted effectively unchanged from the time preceding the publication of On the Origin of Species and it is widely believed that the theory of evolution implies that design in some objectively evaluable sense will arise as a consequence of natural selection operating on random variation.
This chapter examines the relationship between the theory of evolution and the theory of optimal design and concludes that there can be no logical justification for the belief that animal behavior can be predicted by the application of the principles of optimal design, or for the belief that insight can be gained from accepting the premise that evolution acts as if it were an optimizing designer and investigating the behavior of animals to discover its goals and the physical constraints that prevent the animals from achieving them.
Such empirical confirmation as has been obtained from studying animals in terms of design arises out of the coincidental similarity between the animals involved, observer and observed, and where the observed animal behaves unexpectedly, through tautological redefinition of goals, constraints, or both to bring them to coincide with what the animal does.
So too, Aristotle is right when he maintains that all animals have been fitly equipped with the best possible bodies, and he attempts to point out the skill employed in the construction of each one. But they are wrong who fail to perceive the order manifest in the construction of other animals or of the animal constructed most excellently of all; they fight a great fight for fear that they will somehow be shown to have a soul more intelligent than animals created without reason and a body with a construction suitable for an intelligent animal. Well let us leave these people alone...
Galen of Pergamon (De usu partium; see May, 1968, p. 108)
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Barnard, C. J. (1983). Animal Behaviour: Ecology and Evolution ,Croom Helm, London.
Charnov, E. L. (1976). Optimal foraging: The marginal value theorem. Theor. Popul. Biol. 9:129–136.
Cowie, R. J. (1977). Optimal foraging in great tits (Parus major). Nature 268:137–139.
Darwin, C. (1958). The Autobiography of Charles Darwin and Selected Letters ,Dover, New York.
Darwin, C. (1964). On the Origin of Species. A Facsimile of the First Edition with an Introduction by Ernst Mayr. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Hume, D. (1976). Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. In Colver, A. W., and Price, J. V. (eds.), The Natural History of Religion and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Oxford University Press, New York and London.
Hurlbutt, R. H. (1965). Hume, Newton, and the Design Argument ,University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska.
May, M. T. (1968). Galen on the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body [Περì χρεìασ µoρ?ω, De usu partium] Translated from the Greek with an Introduction and Commentary by Margaret Tallmadge May ,Cornell Univeristy Press, Ithaca, New York.
Ollason, J. G. (1980). Learning to forage-Optimally? Theor. Popul. Biol. 18:44–56.
Paley, W. (1836). Natural Theology. In: Paley’s Natural Theology with Illustrative Notes by Henry Lord Brougham, F. R. S. and a Member of the National Institute of France, and Sir Charles Bell, K. G. H., F. R. S., L. G. E. Professor of Surgery in the University of Edinburgh, Formerly of the Council, and Prof. Anat. Roy. Coll. Surg. London, etc. etc.to which are added Supplementary Dissertations by Sir Charles Bell ,Charles Knight,London.
Schaefer, H. (1970). The Roots of Modern Design. Functional Tradition in the 19th Century ,Studio Vista, London.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1987 Plenum Press, New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ollason, J.G. (1987). Artificial Design in Natural History: Why It’s So Easy to Understand Animal Behavior. In: Bateson, P.P.G., Klopfer, P.H. (eds) Perspectives in Ethology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1815-6_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-1815-6_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-9015-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4613-1815-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive