Dry Branches

See J. G. Lennox (1993) ‘Darwin was a Teleologist’, Biology and Philosophy, 8, 409–21, p. 417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

C. R. Darwin Origin of Species, cit., chapter 3, p. 49. The classic interpretation of the ‘analogy’ has often been criticized even in recent decades. However, as Gildenhuys has written, partially acknowledging such criticism, it seems to me that the solution adopted in the end, by which the Origin definitely ‘shows that artificial selection and natural selection operate in an analogous way’ (p. 609), is not so far from the traditional interpretation, which in my opinion is more linear and faithful to the text. See P. Gildenhuys (2004) ‘Darwin, Herschel, and the role of analogy in Darwin’s origin’, Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci., 35, 593–661, pp. 602 ff.Google Scholar

N. Eldredge (2005) Darwin. Discovering the Tree of Life (New York and London: Norton & Company), p. 218 f.Google Scholar

See N. Eldredge (1995) Reinventing Darwin. The Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory (New York: Wiley & Sons), especially chapter 1 ‘Setting the Table’ and chapter 2 ‘The Heart of the Matter: Adaptation and Natural Selection’, in which he stresses how the ‘Ultra-Darwinists’ try to transform natural selection from a simple form of the recording of facts — a filter that conditions the distribution of genes from one generation to another — into a more dynamic force that shapes and moulds the organic form in the course of time, and if Darwin at times considers the concept of selection as an active form, as Natural Artificer modelled on the breeder, for the most part, however, he means it as a passive filter. See also the one-sided interpretation of E. Mayr (2005), ‘Teleology’, in What Makes Biology Unique?, cit., p. 58: ‘Darwin has taught us that seemingly teleological evolutionary changes and the production of adapted features are simply the result of variational evolution, consisting of the production of large amounts of variation in every generation, and the probabilistic survival in every generation, and the probabilistic survival of those individuals remaining after the elimination of the least-fit phenotypes. Adaptedness thus is an a posteriori result rather than an a priori goal seeking. For this reason, the word teleological is misleading when applied to adapted features.’Google Scholar

See S. J. Gould and E. S. Vrba (1982) ‘Exaptation — a missing term in the science of form’, Paleobiology, 8 (1), 4–15, especially pp. 6 ff.Google Scholar

See for example, the criticism of the concept of exaptation by D. C. Dennett (1998) ‘Preston on Exaptation: Herons, Apples, and Eggs’, The Journal of Philosophy, 95, n. 11, 576–80, andCrossRefGoogle Scholar

D. C. Dennett (1995) Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Evolution and the Meanings of Life (New York: Penguin), especially pp. 280 ff.Google Scholar

See in this sense, N. Eldredge (1995) Reinventing Darwin, cit., especially chapter 2, ‘The Hearth of the Matter: Adaptation and Natural selection’, § ‘Dr. Pangloss’.Google Scholar

See R. C. Lewontin (1998) Gene, Organismo e ambiente (Roma-Bari: Laterza), p. 79.Google Scholar

R. C. Lewontin (1991) ‘Facts and the Factitious in Natural Sciences’, Critical Inquiry, 18, n. 1, 140–153, 143 f.; see in the same senseCrossRefGoogle Scholar

S. J. Gould (1994) ‘The Evolution of Life on the Earth’, Scientific American, 271/4, 85–91, especially pp. 85 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

See A. Gotthelf (1999) ‘Darwin on Aristotle’, cit., especially pp. 22–3, which refers especially toGoogle Scholar

J. G. Lennox (1993), ‘Darwin was a Teleologist’, cit.; in the same sense, see alsoGoogle Scholar

A. Gotthelf (1999) ‘From Aristotle to Darwin. Closing Words’, in C. Steel et al. (eds) Aristotle’s Animals in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, cit., p. 399.Google Scholar

A. Ariew (2007) ‘Teleology’, in D. L. Hull and M. Ruse (eds) The Cambridge Companion to Philosophy of Biology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 179, has taken an intermediary position, however, in my opinion still with a finalistic slant.Google Scholar

See M. T. Ghiselin (1994) ‘Darwin’s Language may Seem Teleological, but his Thinking is Another Matter’, Biology and Philosophy, 9, 489–92, p. 489, who immediately makes it clear: ‘Before turning to Darwin studies I did my doctoral research on evolutionary physiological anatomy and was well prepared to understand the conceptual difficulties that attend the study of function. As a result of my work on Darwin I realized that teleological thinking was still exercising a pernicious influence, and the application of a non-teleological approach led me to make quite a number of discoveries, including the size advantage model for sequential hermaphroditism. My book on the evolution of sex is mainly devoted to showing what is wrong with teleological thinking (Ghiselin, 1974)’; if it is true, as suggestsCrossRefGoogle Scholar

Lennox (1994) ‘Teleology by Another Name: A Replay to Ghiselin’, Biology and Philosophy, 9, 493–5, that from the texts as well as the correspondence of Darwin the adoption of a teleological approach to natural selection emerges; on the contrary, this does not remove the possibility of developing a critique of this teleological concept: it suggests developing such a critique.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

See for example N. Eldredge (1999) The Pattern of Evolution (New York: Freeman), pp. 153 ff.Google Scholar

S. J. Gould (1989) Wonderful Life. The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (New York: Northon & Co.), p. 32.Google Scholar

S. J. Gould and R. C. Lewontin (1979) ‘The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm: A Critique of the Adaptationist Programme’, Proc. R. Soc. London B, vol. 205, n. 1161, 581–98; on ‘Panglossian’ circularity among observations and theory within the adaptationist context, see alsoCrossRefGoogle Scholar

R. C. Lewontin (1991) ‘Facts and the Factitious in Natural Sciences’, cit., especially pp. 144–6.Google Scholar

See on the contrary J. Barnes (1982) Introduction to Aristotle (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press), p. 77, who defends functionalist organs/aims thus: ‘Aristotle express this by saying that one answer to the question “Why do ducks have webbed feet?” is “In order to swim.” His “in order to” sounds odd to us only because we associate “in order to” primarily with intentional action. Aristotle associates it primarily with function, and he sees function in nature. He is surely right. Natural objects do contain functional parts and do exhibit functional behaviour; the scientist who is unaware of such functions is ignorant of a major part of his subject-matter.’Google Scholar

See C. R. Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2nd edn (London: Murray, 1882), especially II, pp. 227, 500–33: having recognized that the horns of male deer can be ‘injurious’ and having proposed an explanation in terms of sexual selection, Darwin notes: ‘With stags of many kinds the branches of the horns offer a curious case of difficulty; for certainly a single straight point would inflict a much more serious wound than several diverging ones’, a difficulty which the utmost attention must be paid to, and the discussion of which remains definitely open.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

S. J. Gould and R. C. Lewontin (1979) ‘The spandrels of San Marco’, cit., p. 152.Google Scholar

S. J. Gould and R. C. Lewontin (1979) ‘The spandrels of San Marco’, cit., p. 151.Google Scholar

Aristotle Parts of Animals, cit., I, 640a 20 ff. See on the contrary J. G. Lennox: besides a teleological character attributed to natural selection, he also maintains that ‘Aristotle’s essentialism is not typological, nor is it any obvious way “anti-evolutionary”. Whatever it was that Darwin was up against, it was not Aristotelian essentialism’, and he maintains that ‘Like so many debates in the history of scientific methodology, the one over the limits and value of teleological explanation in biology is as alive today as it was when it began in the fourth century BC. And there is evidence that some of Aristotle’s admirers, like some of Darwin’s, had a tendency to throw the teleological baby out with the panglossian bathwater’ — respectively in J. G. Lennox (2001) ‘Kinds, Forms of Kinds, and the More and Less’ andGoogle Scholar

J. G. Lennox (2001) ‘Theophrastus on the Limits of Teleology’, both in Aristotle’s Philosophy of Biology. Studies on the Origins of Life Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 162, note 11, and p. 276.Google Scholar

See for example C. R. Darwin Origin of Species, cit., chapter 4, p. 402: ‘There remains, however, this difficulty. After an organ has ceased being used, and has become in consequence much reduced, how can it be still further reduced in size until the merest vestige is left; and how can it be finally quite obliterated? It is scarcely possible that disuse can go on producing any further effect after the organ has once been rendered functionless. Some additional explanation is here requisite which I cannot give.’ On the question of non-use, also in relation to moles’ eyes, see for example E. Mayr (1991) One long Argument. Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thinking (Cambridge Mass. and London: Harvard University Press), pp. 109 ff.Google Scholar

From this perspective, according to which DNA represents an eminently material element subject to random mutations, I find the parallel with Aristotle’s eidos unjustified. Rather, it represents an immutable form; see on the contrary E. Mayr (2005), ‘Teleology’, in What Makes Biology Unique?, cit., pp. 54 ff. and The Growth of Biological Thought, cit., pp. 55–6;Google Scholar

F. O’Rourke (2004), ‘Aristotle and the Metaphysics of Evolution’, The Review of Metaphysics, 58, n. 1, 3–59, especially pp. 10–2.Google Scholar

See A. Koyré (1956) ‘Influence of Philosophical Trends on the Foundation of Scientific Theories’, cit., p. 197, in French in the text.Google Scholar