As I have mentioned repeatedly in this series on the science of purpose, the debate between intelligent design (ID) and naturalism has shifted decidedly in favor of ID over just the past two decades. 

I have warned that one of the few remaining avenues that naturalism can take to rescue its paradigm is to appropriate “purpose” within a materialist framework. Not surprisingly, an overt attempt is underway by atheist scientists to do just that.

“Evolution on Purpose”

MIT Press has recently published Evolution on Purpose, a collection of essays by leading theoretical biologists whose overt goal is to demonstrate how purpose, in the guise of teleonomy, can and must be assimilated within the materialist paradigm. Our colleague Daniel Witt has discussed the book in a number of posts.

Evolution on Purpose represents a resounding capitulation on one of the most fundamental concepts. As lead author Peter Corning writes:

A radically different view of evolution has been emerging in this century. We now know that living systems actively shape their own evolution. The distinguished geneticist James Shapiro shows us that (Richard Dawkins’) “selfish gene” model (and the so-called modern synthesis) is quite wrong.

In 1970 in his book Chance & Necessity, Jaques Monod, one of the most prominent proponents of late 20th century scientific atheism, addressed the question of teleonomy in biology as

…one of the fundamental characteristics common to all living beings, that of being objects endowed with a purpose...it is indispensable to the very definition of living beings, that are distinct from all other systems in the universe through this characteristic property, teleonomy….

It is the very existence of this purpose, fulfilled by the teleonomic apparatus, that constitutes the “miracle.” Miracle? No, there is no miracle, but a flagrant epistemological contradiction….

In fact, the central problem of biology lies with this very contradiction here, which if it is only apparent, must be resolved.

A Potential Miracle

Recognizing that teleonomy is “fundamental,” that it potentially constitutes a “miracle,” Monod realized that he had to “resolve the contradiction,” in favor of atheism. Thus in his landmark book he sets about to prove that any notion of intentionality based on the “teleonomic apparatus” of organisms is an illusion, utterly explicable by purely random, undirected molecular events. He believed he had proven that teleonomy equates merely to apparent purpose, thus denying any nonphysical or miraculous nature to teleonomy whatsoever.

But Monod’s “scientific proof” of atheism was later discredited as were many of the other false dogmas of 20th century scientism. This is why the materialists now are attempting to co-opt teleonomy. Life itself is inexplicable without purpose, such that purpose is a sine qua non for any explanatory framework.

A Profound Capitulation

As the title of Evolution on Purpose itself acknowledges, the essays collected there refute Monod’s dismissal of purpose, and instead provide countless examples of problem-solving, goal-directed purposeful behavior, all the way up from molecules to man. That is the capitulation: a total refutation of the vastly oversimplified neo-Darwinian “modern synthesis” which excluded purpose, teleonomic or otherwise, from its description of organisms. As the book’s Introduction, a joint statement from all of the authors, asserts, “Teleonomy in living systems is not, after all, only ‘apparent.’ It is a fundamental fact of life.”

Indeed, for the most part, the contributors are a collection of outspoken critics of the modern synthesis whose intention is to rescue the failing naturalist paradigm. Advocating without equivocation for teleonomic purpose in nature, the essays explicate the past error of excluding purpose in biology.

So, on the one hand, it is encouraging to find some common ground with our adversaries, all of whom are highly accomplished biologists, able to offer greatly detailed examples of purposeful behavior in organisms.

Yet on the other hand, the deeper problem remains. While all the chapters advocate strongly for either a major revision or even outright renunciation of the modern synthesis, the explicit intent of the writers is to maintain pure physicalism in their new evolutionary theory, which must include the now unavoidable incorporation of the once-dismissed “teleonomy.” 

A False Distinction

To that end they draw the false distinction between teleology in the Thomistic (religious) sense as being external to organisms, acting upon them to exert final causality/telos, and teleonomy as an immanent property of the living state. The strategy is to internalize final causality or telos, thereby naturalizing it, and thus appropriating it into the materialist framework.

From a careful reading of the frequent concessions made by the authors—detailing the errors made in the past by their erstwhile thought leaders, explicitly including Darwin, Dawkins, Monod, Mayr, et al. — there can be no doubt that the goal is to physicalize teleology as teleonomy. Corning quotes Theodosius Dobzhansky, one of the 20th century’s leading Darwinists, to explain:

Living beings have an internal, or natural, teleology… the outcome of three and a half billion years of organic evolution.

Or as Corning himself puts it, 

Agency is a term utilized in biology to characterize the ability of a living system to act as an autonomous, self-directed agent…When a hungry fox chases an evasive hare, both are exercising agency — not God’s will, or a philosophical concept, but an evolved capability for meeting their needs and coping with challenges in their environments. Agency in living systems is a product of the evolutionary “trial and success” process.

We see here the overwhelming proclivity of the materialist framework to conclude that goal-directed purpose is nothing more than a requirement for survival. The acknowledgment on the contributors’ part of teleonomy in life eventually devolves all the way back to “survival of the fittest.”

Transcending the Gap 

In my book Telos, I too describe teleology as an immanent, embedded, indwelling force of nature. Because empirically, that’s exactly what it is. But regarding the metaphysics beyond empiricism, because final causality or purpose requires intentionality, it transcends the gap between the mystical and the material as a “unifying metaphysic.”

Fortunately, the resolution of this false impasse is readily available. The often-overlooked fatal flaw of naturalistic evolutionary theory is that purpose must precede fitness for evolution to occur. That is because evolution requires that individuals, no matter how fit, must still struggle to survive. And struggling depends upon goal-directedness, which requires purpose. That leads us to the inescapable conclusion that struggling to survive, while enabled by adequate fitness, is an epiphenomenon, dependent on immanent purpose. It’s not the other way around, as those naturalists who have only recently discovered purpose would have us believe. 

The Essence of Life

Put baldly, purpose, as in final causality or telos, is the essence of life. Everything else that is material, efficient, or mechanical is secondary.

We now know that purpose begins all the way down at the molecular level, before life’s very origin. The purpose of foxes wanting to eat hares, and hares not wanting to be eaten, is self-evident. But Corning goes on to point out the purpose-driven behavior of biomolecules as well as of whole organisms. 

Recent progress in microbiology has shown that a majority of DNA changes are the product of internal regulatory control networks, not random mutations…[R]apid genome restructuring and alterations can be achieved by a variety of mobile DNA “modules” — transposons, integrons, CRISPRs, retroposons, and more…

Our interlocutors, it seems, have finally acknowledged the science of purpose. Will they go further? All forces of nature must derive from an ultimate source, just like reality itself. One’s belief as to the nature of that ultimate source is based on personal inference. For many, the mere existence of an orderly, knowable world is proof enough of the ultimate reality of eternal mind, or godhead. 

Therefore, it is imperative that we continue to help others understand that the recently revealed reality of purposeful intentionality in non-sentient entities, such as molecules, cells, organs, as well as organisms, can never be reasonably reduced to mere materialism.