Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences xxx (2015) 1e7

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Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and

Evolutionary biology and the question of teleology

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Teleologydwhat Aristotle called “final cause”dis trying to understand things in terms of the future, as
Available online xxx when we ask about the plates on the back of the dinosaur, stegosaurus, and suggest that they might
sometime be used to control the internal temperature of the brute. Recently the philosopher Thomas
Keywords: Nagel has argued for a wholesale embrace of teleological thinking in the sciences, particularly the life
Thomas Nagel sciences. I argue that Nagel’s thinking is shoddy and ill-informed, but that in some sense biologists do
Teleology
(with reason) seem drawn to teleological understanding, and so the correct response is not outright
Final cause
rejection of the very idea but a more informed and sympathetic approach to those aspects of nature that
Charles Darwin
Natural selection
seem to call for final cause thinking.
Arms race Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences

1. Thomas Nagel’s bad book most despised science book of 2012 (Chorost, 2013). Perhaps
expectedly, the Creationists loved it!
Recently the well-known American philosopher Thomas Nagel Mind and Cosmos is not a great book (Ruse, 2010). Nagel’s
published a book, Mind and Cosmos, in which he argued that the knowledge of biology is breathtaking in its nigh-willful superfici-
thus-far insoluble problems of the biological sciences (especially in ality. One suspects that only someone who knew his conclusion
the field of evolution) suggest that researchers need to return to before he started his research could argue in so shallow and
teleological explanations. misleading a fashion. Nagel is no Creationist. One accepts his claim
to be an atheist. He does however have a record of praising Crea-
If contemporary research in molecular biology leaves open the
tionist booksdmore specifically, he praises books by the so-called
possibility of legitimate doubts about a fully mechanistic ac-
Intelligent Design Theorists, what I call “Creationism Lite”dand
count of the origin and evolution of life, dependent only on the
one senses a shared contempt for and fear of arguments about
laws of chemistry and physics, this can combine with the failure
evolutionary origins. (See Behe, 1996.) Perhaps if we were to
of psychophysical reductionism to suggest that principles of a
identify one single factor for this hostilitydand this is made very
different kind are also at work in the history of nature, principles
clear by Nageldit is that evolutionary thinking belittles the worth
of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological
of humankind. We are reduced to mere matter in motion and that
rather than mechanistic. (Nagel, 2012, 7)
which makes us somehow special is downgraded and denied. I will
not here go into more details; what I would like to do here is turn
To say that the book was not well received is a bit like saying that the tables somewhat and pick up and take seriously Nagel’s claim
Hitler had a thing about Jews. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker that we need to take up teleological modes of understanding. Given
wrote on Twitter of “the shoddy reasoning of a once-great thinker.” that I am one who has written critically of Nagel’s book, it may
Daniel Dennett bluntly said that Nagel’s work “isn’t worth any- seem odddhypocritical perhapsdthat I would do so. But I am
thingdit’s cute and it’s clever and it’s not worth a damn.” And the motivated by the ferocity of the reactions to Mind and Cosmos. Bad
Guardian newspaper carried a headline that Nagel’s book was the books appear on a regular basis. Generally such books get little
press and they make no waves and are soon forgotten. Why then
did Nagel’s book so upset people?
E-mail address: [email protected].

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.12.001
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In part obviously the reaction was because of the Creationism This is a view made popular at the end of the nineteenth century by a
factor. Any book praised by Creationists is going to be disliked and the group known naturally as “vitalists,” led by the German embryologist
fact that already Nagel had earlier spoken warmly of Creationist Hans Driesch who spoke of “entelechies” and the French philosopher
works did not help. I suspect however that there was something Henri Bergson who spoke of “élans vitaux.” (See Bergson, 1907 and
about teleology in itself that rattled people. This mode of thought is in Driesch, 1908.) I will not stop here to criticize this view because this
some sense considered not just wrong but unclean, and when Nagel was done so often in the last century, but I will agree with the critics
started pushing it, emotions were generated and poured forth. that the main problem with vital forces is that they seem not to add to
Embracing and advocating teleology is a bit like smoking in some- the explanatory mix. Once you have finished talking about DNA and
one’s living room. People used to do it but they don’t anymore and that sort of thing, it really doesn’t seem that adding vital forces adds
very much disapprove of those that still do. It is just something that is at all to one’s understanding. However, I will agree with Nagel that
alien to decent people, or perhaps as with smoking not done now but there does seem to be something teleological about organism talk-
with a hint of past pleasures and urges that must now be repressed. dwe do have forward referencedand that this needs explaining. The
Nothing like a reformed Magdalene for sanctimonious disapproval. eye does serve the future purpose of seeing. What I would say is that
This is the hunch I want to pursue and unpack. Teleology unnerves as always in science we have a metaphor at work here, the metaphor
people because although it is wrong it is still tempting. of design. We look at the eye as if designed, even though it may not
be, and the reason why we do this is because it does seem as if
2. What is teleology? designed and using the metaphor has incredible heuristic value. In
the stegosaurus case, thinking of the plates as if designed for cooling
What does one mean by “teleology,” or more specifically what is led to all sorts of interesting hypotheses about blood flow, that were
a “teleological explanation”? It is a form of explanation that makes later confirmed.
reference to causes that can be understood only in terms of the Where I part company with Nagel is in thinking that, in the case
future (Ruse, 2003). To make sense of this definition, contrast the design of organisms, we have a more than adequate natural-
teleological explanation with more usual forms of explanation that isticdmechanisticdaccount. This is Charles Darwin’s theory of
make reference to “proximate” or “efficient” causes. These latter evolution through natural selection. In his Origin of Species, Darwin
explanations are in terms of causes that are understood in terms of argued that population pressures lead to a struggle for existence
past or present. So for instance if I say (to take a biological example) and (more importantly) reproduction. The successful in the strug-
the reason why a child has Down’s syndrome is because he has an gle will tend to be different from the unsuccessful and it will be the
extra chromosome, I am explaining the physical and psychological differences that count. Given enough time there will thus be a
nature of the child in terms of some cause that already exists. In a natural form of selection.
teleological explanation I am explaining in terms of causes that do
Let it be borne in mind how infinitely complex and close-fitting
not yet exist. If I say (to take another biological example) the plates
are the mutual relations of all organic beings to each other and
on the back of stegosaurus exist in order to (for the purpose of, have
to their physical conditions of life. Can it, then, be thought
the function of) regulating the heat of the animal, I am talking of
improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have un-
what I expect to happen. The stegosaurus has its plates now. Later
doubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to
in the day, the sun heats the brute and then the plates start to
each being in the great and complex battle of life, should
radiate heat or to catch the cooling breezes in the air.
sometimes occur in the course of thousands of generations? If
Note therefore that there is not really a straight analogy be-
such do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more
tween proximate causes and teleological causes. In the former case,
individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals
you know that the cause exists or existed. In the latter case, the
having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have
cause may never exist! It could be that the stegosaurus falls of a cliff
the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? On
and never uses its plates for their intended purpose. How then can
the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least
there be reference to the future if the future never occurs? There are
degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation
two proffered explanations. One is that teleological explanation
of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations,
occurs in the context of intelligent design. The purpose of the air-
I call Natural Selection. (Darwin, 1859, 80e81)
bags in the automobile is to explode on major contact. It may be
that the airbags never are used for this purpose, but the point is that
someone at some point thought about what might happen and Note that Darwin’s mechanism not only leads to change but to
designed and built them accordingly. The future reference comes change of a particular kind. Organisms will develop end-directed
because someone thought about it. (This has its roots in the features like hands and eyes, what biologists call “adaptations.”
thinking of Plato.) The other explanation is that there is some kind There will be an appearance of design, without need of vital forces
of special force that is future directed. The force may not be a or direct interventions by a designer. Blind mechanical law can do
thinking force, but it seeks out phenomena or events in the future. everything. It is not so much that final-cause type understanding is
The idea here is rather like the goal-directed system you get in now gonedDarwin himself happily talked about final causes and
rockets. As the target moves, the rocket adjusts its direction he certainly thought that this involved explaining in terms of the
accordingly with the aim of hitting the target. The analogy is not futuredbut that teleology is now subsumed under mechanism
quite exact, because in the case of rockets someonedsome bright (Ruse, 2009).
engineer from MITddesigned the seeking system. But you get the
idea. (This has its roots in the thinking of Aristotle.) 4. The challenge of history

3. Charles Darwin and natural selection For the Greeks, this would have been the end of the story. They,
at least the philosophers, had no real thoughts of development
I will take seriously Nagel’s claim that he is not a believer, so I through time. Their world was eternal and essentially unchanging.
accept that he does not see the teleology of biology as literally Historical development comes later and is due in no small part to
designed. I presume therefore that he subscribes to some kind of the biblical narrative, with the movement from Eden to Calvary and
view that has special forcesd“vital forces”dfocused on the future. later. It was after the Scientific Revolution, during the

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 M. Ruse / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences xxx (2015) 1e7 3

Enlightenment starting at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Surely this all came to an end with Charles Darwin? Evolution
that people started really to think seriously about development was now far more than something merely riding on the back of the
over time. With this came another dimension to the story of tele- idea of cultural progress. Interestingly, however, its connection
ology. Now the end points, future references, were not to individ- with cultural progress was not severed. Evolutionists continued to
ualsdthe parts of organisms for instancedbut to the end or be thoroughly soaked in thoughts about cultural progress and they
culmination of time. The question now was about the direction of continued to see this reflected in the history of organic life. This was
history and how we can and should interpret the present in terms true of Darwin: “The inhabitants of each successive period in the
of what is to come rather than simply in terms of what has passed. world’s history have beaten their predecessors in the race for life,
Essentially this is the story of progress (Ruse, 1996). It is true of and are, in so far, higher in the scale of nature; and this may account
course that one might see history as culminating in humans driving for that vague yet ill-defined sentiment, felt by many palæontolo-
themselves off the edge of a cliff, and in this age of nuclear weap- gists, that organization on the whole has progressed.” (Darwin,
onry and global warming who can gainsay such thinking? But 1859, 345) And this kind of thinking continued right down into
traditionally those thinking about historical development have the twentieth century. There have been those, like the late Stephen
tended to be optimists, to have endorsed thoughts of progress. In Jay Gould, who attacked the whole notion of biological progress. He
the world of culture, of society, this is the idea that socially and wrote of biological progress as “a noxious, culturally embedded,
intellectually we humans are improving and will continue to do so. untestable, nonoperational, intractable idea that must be replaced
There is an upward pattern to history and we should see stages not if we wish to understand the patterns of history” (Gould, 1988, 319).
only as reflecting what has happened in the past but what was He argued that there is nothing inevitable about the emergence of
bound to happen in the future. There is change and there is di- humans. Making joking reference to the asteroid that hit the Earth
rection and to understand it we need to see where it is headed. In 65 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs, making possible
other words we need teleological understanding. And, increasingly the age of mammals, he wrote: “Since dinosaurs were not moving
through the eighteenth century, people argued that the same is toward markedly larger brains, and since such a prospect may lie
true in the world of organisms. They too show progress, from the outside the capabilities of reptilian design., we must assume that
simple to the complex, from that lacking in worth to that with consciousness would not have evolved on our planet if a cosmic
fullest worth, from, as it was called, the monad to the man. Some catastrophe had not claimed the dinosaurs as victims. In an entirely
thought that the progress was more conceptual than actual, in the literal sense, we owe our existence, as large and reasoning mam-
sense of talking of linked development from one to the next that is mals, to our lucky stars” (Gould, 1989, 318).
to say of physical evolution. Others, with greater or lesser enthu- Actually, as we shall see, Gould’s full position on the subject
siasm accepted the reality of the connections. Either way, as with was much more complex than a simple denial of progress. But
adaptations, here also teleological understanding is demanded, as Gould apart, the fact is that many, perhaps most, continued to
we see the futuredin the sense that humans once did not exist and believe in such progress. Today’s most distinguished living
then later they diddas important to understanding as is the past. evolutionist, Edward O. Wilson of Harvard University, is open in
Cultural progress and biological progress were never two sepa- his fervent belief in biological progress. “The overall average
rate ideas. The latter was always an epiphenomenon of the former across the history of life has moved from the simple and few to
and often used in a somewhat circular fashion to support the former. the more complex and numerous. During the past billion years,
Denis Diderot, the French encyclopedist, was a pioneer. “Just as in animals as a whole evolved upward in body size, feeding and
the animal and vegetable kingdoms, an individual begins, so to defensive techniques, brain and behavioral complexity, social
speak, grows, subsists, decays and passes away, could it not be the organization, and precision of environmental controldin each
same with the whole species?” (Diderot, 1943, 48, quoting On the case farther from the nonliving state than their simpler ante-
Interpretation of Nature, 1754) He made no bones about seeing a link cedents did” (Wilson, 1992, 187). Adding: “Progress, then, is a
between his social views and his scientific speculations. “The Tahi- property of the evolution of life as a whole by almost any
tian is at a primary stage in the development of the world, the Eu- conceivable intuitive standard, including the acquisition of goals
ropean is at its old age. The interval separating us is greater than that and intentions in the behavior of animals.” (See also Wilson,
between the new-born child and the decrepit old man” (Diderot, 1975.) Others agree. In his great popular overview of modern
1943, 152, quoting Supplement to Bougainville’s Voyage, 1772). evolutionary thinking, The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Richard
Later in the century Charles Darwin’s grandfather, the physician Dawkins refers to Harry Jerison’s (1973) notion of an Encephal-
Erasmus Darwin, fell into the same pattern. ization Quotient, this being a kind of universal animal IQ, that
works from brain size and subtracts the gray matter simply
Imperious man, who rules the bestial crowd,
needed to get the body functioningdwhales necessarily have
Of language, reason, and reflection proud, bigger brains than shrews, because they have bigger bodies.
What counts is what is left when you take off the body-
With brow erect who scorns this earthy sod,
functioning portion. Thus measured, humans come way out on
And styles himself the image of his God; top, leading Dawkins (1986, 189) to reflect: “The fact that humans
have an EQ of 7 and hippos an EQ of 0.3 may not literally mean
Arose from rudiments of form and sense,
that humans are 23 times as clever as hippos!” But, he concludes,
An embryon point, or microscopic ens! it does tell us “something.”
(Darwin, 1803, 1, 11, 295e314)
5. Problems with progress
Explicitly, Erasmus Darwin tied in this vision of the organic world
Why would anyone worry about biological progress? Couldn’t
with his hopes and beliefs about the social world: the idea of
you say that although it has the odor of teleologydthe course of
organic progressive evolution “is analogous to the improving
evolution is directed to the end point of humankinddthe system is
excellence observable in every part of the creation; . such as the
just as mechanistic as adaptation, something else with the odor of
progressive increase of the wisdom and happiness of its in-
teleology but entirely mechanistic? In fact, the same process is at
habitants” (Darwin, 1794e96, 509).
work in both cases, natural selection in the short term for

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4 M. Ruse / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences xxx (2015) 1e7

adaptation and natural selection in the long term for progress. As it 7. Arms races
happens, it is pretty clear that Gould’s objections to biological
progress were more social than scientific. He believed in social How are you going to get this complexity by natural means?
progress but thought biological progress a barrier to its fulfillment. Again Darwin comes to our aid. Basically you argue that selection
Too easily biological progress is used to justify racismdblacks, leads to competition and the more subtle or sophisticated or
Asians, Jews down the scale and white Anglo-Saxons at the top- complex will win out in the end. Intelligence is at the top of
dand he fought against his all of his life. But this kind of thinking complexity and so humans come out top.
aside, the fact is that many find beliefs in biological progress
If we look at the differentiation and specialisation of the several
something of an embarrassment. At the specific level, because
organs of each being when adult (and this will include the
whatever Darwin himself may have thought, it seems that his
advancement of the brain for intellectual purposes) as the best
theory quite undermines thoughts of biological progress. On the
standard of highness of organisation, natural selection clearly
one hand, natural selection is relativistic. It is not a tautology but it
leads towards highness; for all physiologists admit that the
does say that what is of adaptive advantage in one situation is not
specialisation of organs, inasmuch as they perform in this state
necessarily of adaptive advantage in other situations. A dark-
their functions better, is an advantage to each being; and hence
skinned mouse is camouflaged on clay soil whereas a light-
the accumulation of variations tending towards specialisation is
skinned mouse is camouflaged on sandy soil. On the other hand,
within the scope of natural selection. (Darwin, 1861, 134)
the variationsdthe raw building blocks of evolutiondare random
in the sense of not occurring according to need. There is no direc-
tion in their nature. This fact too seems to tell against inevitable In the twentieth century, this kind of thinking was refined and the
upwards climb. At the general level, seeing the history of life on discussion was cast in terms of “arms races.” Lines of organisms
Earth as moving up towards the best of all possible organisms, compete and improvement occursdthe prey gets faster and so does
Homo sapiens, is to put value judgments right up front of one’s the predator. The person who really developed this notion was
science. And this is considered incompatible with good science. Julian Huxley. Likening biological evolution to the competition
Since the Scientific Revolution, nature has been seen simply as between nations in preparation for war, and making reference
matter in motion, without point, without purpose. Hence profes- (writing in 1912) to the naval build-up between Germany and
sional science itself must be value free. It cannot promote things Britain, Huxley wrote: “The leaden plum-puddings were not un-
one wants. Only things as they are. In the words of Karl Popper fairly matched against the wooden walls of Nelson’s day.” He then
(1972), science is “knowledge without a knower,” meaning that added that today “though our guns can hurl a third of a ton of
human interests are excluded. Thus although there may be belief in sharp-nosed steel with dynamite entrails for a dozen miles, yet
biological progress, the tendency is to downplay it or exclude it they are confronted with twelve-inch armor of backed and hard-
from explicit discussion. ened steel, water-tight compartments, and targets moving thirty
miles an hour. Each advance in attack has brought forth, as if by
magic, a corresponding advance in defence.” Explicitly, Huxley
6. Naturalizing progress
likened this to the organic world, for “if one species happens to vary
in the direction of greater independence, the inter-related equi-
Or to argue that it is no longer a value laden notion! As in the
librium is upset, and cannot be restored until a number of
case of final causes with respect to individual features (adapta-
competing species have either given way to the increased pressure
tions), the hope is that the teleology of history can be put on a
and become extinct, or else have answered pressure with pressure,
happy mechanical foundation. How can this be done? God cannot
and kept the first species in its place by themselves too discovering
enter into the picture. Neither can vital forces. Natural selection
means of adding to their independence” (Huxley, 1912, 115e16).
itself, or some equally naturalistic alternative, must do the
And so finally: “it comes to pass that the continuous change which
explaining. Part of the trick will be giving a definition or charac-
is passing that through the organic world appears as a succession of
terization of what is being produced, something that humans have
phases of equilibrium, each one on a higher average plane of in-
more than any other organisms. One can hardly simply say “hu-
dependence than the one before, and each inevitably calling up and
man-like features” because that just gets you into a circle. They
giving place to one still higher.”
must be features that we in some sense judge desirable, although
Richard Dawkins picks right up on this sort of thinking. In a
the judgment itself cannot be part of the science. Generally the
paper co-authored with fellow biologist John Krebs he writes that
move is towards some kind of complexity. Darwin led the way here.
even “if modern predators are no better at catching prey than
In the third edition of the Origin (1861) he admitted that “natu-
Eocene predators were at catching Eocene prey, it does at first sight
ralists have not defined to each other’s satisfaction what is meant
seem to be an expectation of the arms race idea that modern
by an advance in organisation.” However, he was prepared to make
predators might massacre Eocene prey. And Eocene predators
a suggestion of his own.
chasing modern prey might be in the same position as a Spitfire
Amongst the vertebrata the degree of intellect and an approach in chasing a jet” (Dawkins & Krebs, 1979, 490). In other words, in
structure to man clearly come into play. It might be thought that Dawkins’s happy Darwinian world, it all comes out right in the end.
the amount of change which the various parts and organs un- As in the military world, weaponry has become increasingly elec-
dergo in their development from the embryo to maturity would tronic, and those organisms with the biggest on-board computers
suffice as a standard of comparison; but there are cases, as with win out.
certain parasitic crustaceans, in which several parts of the struc-
ture become less perfect, so that the mature animal cannot be 8. Niches
called higher than its larva. Von Baer’s standard seems the most
widely applicable and the best, namely, the amount of differen- A second Darwinian approach can be found in one of the
tiation of the different parts (in the adult state, as I should be many essays that Stephen Jay Gould penned for Natural History.
inclined to add) and their specialisation for different functions; or, This may seem strange, because we have seen how he argued
as Milne Edwards would express it, the completeness of the di- against biological progress. However, as I have pointed out, it is
vision of physiological labour. (Darwin, 1861, 133) clear that this opposition was more political than

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 M. Ruse / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences xxx (2015) 1e7 5

epistemological, and if you look at Gould’s overall corpus, you Conway Morris argues that, given the ubiquity of convergence,
find that throughout he had yearnings for some kind of we must allow that the historical course of nature is not random
improving development with humans winning out in the end. but strongly selection-constrained along certain pathways and to
Think about ecological nichesdlike the shelter provided by trees certain destinations. Most particularly, some kind of intelligent
or the safety of burrows underground. One might say that, being was bound to emerge. After all, our own very existence shows
thanks to natural selection, organisms are constantly looking and that a kind of cultural adaptive niche existsda niche that prizes
prodding to find new niches and, when they do, they enter and intelligence and social abilities.
exploit them. The first animals to get up to and survive on dry
If brains can get big independently and provide a neural
land found a whole new area in which they and their de-
machine capable of handling a highly complex environment,
scendents could live and thrive. Culture can be described as one
then perhaps there are other parallels, other convergences
such niche, the niches that humans have found and entered. If
that drive some groups towards complexity. Could the story of
not us, was it not predictable that someone on Earth would find
sensory perception be one clue that, given time, evolution will
and enter the niche? Why should this not happen repeatedly, if
inevitably lead not only to the emergence of such properties
not here on Earth (because you might say that we have now
as intelligence, but also to other complexities, such as, say,
blocked the entrance) then elsewhere in the universe? Note that
agriculture and culture, that we tend to regard as the
selection here is doing the work, but it is not doing it by one
prerogative of the human? We may be unique, but paradox-
organism beating out another and thus proving its superiority.
ically those properties that define our uniqueness can still be
The superiority if such there be comes from the niche itself and
inherent in the evolutionary process. In other words, if we
rather confers this on its inhabitants. So there are no longer the
humans had not evolved then something more-or-less iden-
obvious opportunities for racism and sexism.
tical would have emerged sooner or later. (Conway Morris,
In an essay on the search for extraterrestrial life, Gould wrote: “I
2003, 196)
can present a good argument from “evolutionary theory” against
the repetition of anything like a human body elsewhere; I cannot
extend it to the general proposition that intelligence in some form
might pervade the universe” (Gould, 1985, 411). He then went on to 9. Complexity just happens
quote the leading twentieth-century evolutionist Theodosius
Dobzhansky, writing in a textbook with other major evolutionists: A third suggestion finds hints in Darwin but it is not very
“Granting that the possibility of obtaining a man-like creature is Darwinian, inasmuch as it does not rely on natural selection. It
vanishingly small even given an astronomical number of basically says that there is a natural tendency to complexity and
attempts. there is still some small possibility that another intel- over time you will get what you want. In one of his early notebooks
ligent species has arisen, one that is capable of achieving a tech- Darwin wrote:
nological civilization” (412). About this passage, Gould commented:
The enormous number of animals in the world depends of their
“I am not convinced that the possibility is so small.” He then gave an
varied structure & complexity. d hence as the forms became
argument that evolutionary convergence (where two different lines
complicated, they opened fresh means of adding to their
evolve essentially similar adaptations to survive and reproduce)
complexity. d but yet there is no necessary tendency in the
suggests that even though major intelligence has arisen but once on
simple animals to become complicated although all perhaps will
this earth, it is quite possible that elsewhere in the universe it has
have done so from the new relations caused by the advancing
arisen quite independently.
complexity of others. d It may be said, why should there not be
Conscious intelligence has evolved only once on earth, and at any time as many species tending to dis-development (some
presents no real prospect for reemergence should we choose to probably always have done so, as the simplest fish), my answer
use our gift for destruction. But does intelligence lie within the is because, if we begin with the simplest forms & suppose them
class of phenomena too complex and historically conditioned to have changed, their very changes tend to give rise to others.
for repetition? I do not think that its uniqueness on earth (Barrett et al. 1987; Notebook, E, 95e6)
specifies such a conclusion. Perhaps, in another form on another
world, intelligence would be as easy to evolve as flight on ours.
Of course, for Darwin, selection was always hovering, so he would
(412)
have seen this process connected to change towards adaptive
advantage. A purer version, if we might so describe it, can be found
This argument has been picked up (apparently independently) in the thought of Herbert Spencer. To characterize the phenomenon
and promoted by the paleontologist Simon Conway Morris, who of complexity, something he admitted he got from the Natur-
(as a Christian) is very keen to argue for the inevitability of the philosoph Friedrich Schelling via the writings of the poet Samuel
appearance of humans. He argues that only certain areas of what Coleridge, Spencer introduced two terms which have had a very
we might call “morphological space” are welcoming to life forms long shelf life. Simple organisms (or states of affairs generally) are
(the center of the sun would not be, for instance) and that this “homogeneous. Complex organisms (or states) are “heteroge-
constrains the course of evolution. Again and again, as Gould neous.” The course of progress therefore is from the homogeneous
argued, organisms take the same route into a pre-existing niche. to the heterogeneous. As he developed his thinking around the
The saber-toothed, tiger-like organisms are a nice example, where time that Darwin published the Origin, Spencer fell more and more
the North American placental mammals (real cats) were matched under the spell of physics. This led to his full-blown theory of
right down the line by South American marsupials (thyla- “dynamic equilibrium.” He argued that organisms, or a state, exist
cosmilids). There existed a niche for organisms that were preda- in a balancedworking normally, with everything in equilibria.
tors, with cat-like abilities and shearing/stabbing-like weapons. Then somethingdquite possibly something from outsidedacts to
Darwinian selection found more than one way to enter itdfrom upset the balance and things get into play. They are striving always
the placental side and from the marsupial side. It was not a to regain equilibrium, just as a ball bearing at the bottom of a bowl,
question of beating out others but of finding pathways that others if disturbed, will naturally tend back down to the center and to
had not found. regained equilibrium. Eventually this balance will be achieved, but

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it will be a new balance, higher than before, and with a greater have their costs, namely the need of large quantities of high-grade
heterogeneity than before. Backing all of this, Spencer gave a kind fuel (the bodies of other animals) and there are times when this
of metaphysical principledone that may or may not have been might not pay. In the immortal words of the late John J Sepkoski: “I
behind the notebook passage of Darwin quoted abovedthat causes see intelligence as just one of a variety of adaptations among tet-
always proliferate in several effects but never conversely. So rapods for survival. Running fast in a herd while being as dumb as
complexity emerges naturally. “Every active force produces more shit, I think, is a very good adaptation for survival” (Ruse, 1996,
than one change e every cause produces more than one effect” 486).
(Spencer, 1857, 32). The niche suggestion is clever and may have some real worth.
More recently, in his book Full House (1996), Gould argued that However, as critics of Darwinism like geneticist Richard Lewontin
there is certainly no necessary, selection-driven process of pro- (1983) point out non-stop, niches do not exist in splendid isola-
gressive evolution leading to greater complexity. However, he did tion waiting to be found. They are as much made as discovered. The
at the same time agree that the natural course of events would lead niche for insects at the tops of Brazilian junglesdapparently a very
to ever-more complex organisms. These ideas have been picked up rich home for much lifedobviously would not exist were there no
and developed at some length recently in a new book by two ac- trees. The point is not whether humans have evolved, because
ademics at Duke University, one a biologist (Daniel McShea) and obviously we have. The question is whether we would necessarily
the other a philosopher (Robert Brandon). In Biology’s First Law: The evolve given the evolutionary processdeither here or somewhere
Tendency for Diversity and Complexity to Increase in Evolutionary else in the universe. Who is to say that there are not many other
Systems, they offer a very Spencerian vision of the evolutionary possible niches that would produce something quite different from
process (McShea & Brandon, 2010). They call their law the “zero- consciousness but as effective? Don’t ask me what they are, because
force evolutionary law,” or ZFEL. It is formulated as follows: “In any the whole point is that I don’t know! I am just asking why they are
evolutionary system in which there is variation and heredity, in the ruled out.
absence of natural selection, other forces, and constraints acting on Finally the natural tendency to complexity. This may well be
diversity or complexity, diversity and complexity will increase on true and it may be important. Darwin is surely right about the way
average.” What do McShea and Brandon mean by complexity? in which it leads to a diversity of organisms. But again I am not quite
Certainly nothing to do with natural selection as such. They say that sure why humansdor human-like beingsdshould emerge.
complexity is “a function only of the amount of differentiation Perhaps they will. Perhaps they won’t. The point is that without
among parts within an individual.” Elsewhere they say some stronger reason, like those supplied by the Greeks, you might
““complexity” just means number of parts types or degree of dif- be waiting a long time for nothing. And the Greek solutions are not
ferentiation among parts.” They are very careful to specify that this acceptable in modern science.
has nothing to do with adaptation. Indeed they say “in our usage,
even function less, useless, part types contribute to complexity.
11. Envoi
Even maladaptive differentiation is pure complexity.” How could
this complexity come about? It all seems to be a matter of
All of this may leave the reader somewhat dissatisfied. There has
randomness, meaning not that there are no causesdwith orthodox
to be some reason why humans, the best of all organisms, emerged.
Darwinians they would agree that the building blocks of evolution
And yet, given mechanism, there is no satisfactory answer or pros-
(mutations) have physical causesdbut that there is no direction in
pect of such an answer. Which brings us back to Thomas Nagel. I
the nature of the building blocks or in what happens to them once
suggest that for all of the inadequacies of his own positiondit was
they appear. With Gould, and I think with Spencer, they simply
reprehensible to argue in the shoddy fashion to be found in Mind and
believe that over time more and more things will happen and
Cosmosdhe has put his finger on a sore point. Evolutionists want
pieces will be produced and thus complexity will emerge. It is the
teleology but they cannot have it. And perhaps that goes some way
inevitability of the drunkard falling into the gutter.
towards explaining the vehemence of their reactions to his book.
10. Close but no cigar
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Please cite this article in press as: Ruse, M., Evolutionary biology and the question of teleology, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological
and Biomedical Sciences (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.12.001