Talk:Teleology in biology

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 January 2019 and 24 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nsaffran.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:04, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Some comments

 * 1) Teleology is a kind of thought.
 * 2) This kind of thought holds that goals and ends are causal.
 * 3) Such thinking goes against modern science (see Mind and Cosmos).
 * 4) In pre-darwinian biology, truly teleological explanations were dominant and taken for granted.
 * 5) In modern biology, explanations that look teleological but are not intended to be teleological are common.
 * 6) This article should not assume that the reader understands what teleology is. It is a difficult concept and the article teleology does not explain it well.
 * 7) The phenomenon of teleology in biology does not have a name. Therefore the article should not take the form of an explanation of a term.
 * 8) Although there is consensus in modern biology on accepting only mechanistic, reductionist, explanations, teleological explanations are still debated in philosophical discussions on biological subjects, for example the evolution of consciousness.

Teleological expressions are common in modern biology and historical biology was truly teleological. This means that historical biology viewed biological phenomena as arising because they fulfilled a goal, for example the will of God. In modern biology, statements that look teleological are still common. In evolution, the more efficient variants become more common. When the biologist discusses specific features of those variants, it is very tempting to describe them as if they are there because they fulfill an imagined goal of being successful in becoming common. Ettrig (talk) 10:02, 10 April 2017‎ (UTC)


 * Thanks for those Wittgensteinian comments, which I do in fact understand, but I wouldn't assume to be transparent to many readers. I had as it happens just copy-edited your additions into the article. We must take care not to lose readers in a Tractatus-like maze of philosophical caveats: the article on Teleology is necessarily more philosophical than this one, and is the right place for detailed definition and the kind of improvements you suggest: it is already "main"-linked in the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:14, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Hmm. We seem to agree on the difficult parts and disagree on the easy parts. Peculiar. I think the points above are important for the writer of this article to have in mind, but not suitable to put directly in the article. That is why I put them here in the talk page. You seem to agree on this. Still, you seem vaguely unhappy. I don't know what to do about that. --Ettrig (talk) 10:29, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm very glad to hear you don't want to put them in the article; putting things on a talk page generally means the opposite, indeed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:21, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

First sentence
Teleology in biology describes adaptations that achieve the Darwinian evolutionary goal of improving an organism's fitness, that is to say increasing its chances of leaving offspring which themselves survive to reproduce.

This first sentence is confusing. The task is to describe the occurrence of teleology in biology. Instead of doing this it almost only describes natural selection. The only difference is the occurence of the word goal. This is wrong about Darwinism and true about teleology. The way it is formulated it is not possible to determine which one is intended or even if the writer was aware of the distinction. This is a Wikipedia article, so instead of being obscure we must strive to be very clear. Yes, the apparent purpusefulness of adaptations do tempt to teleological interpretations. But we must define what a teleological interpretation in biology is before we explain how it arose. --Ettrig (talk) 11:03, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, the additions to the lead have made that beginning awkward. I've reworded the first few lines. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:22, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion
Can I recommend this article contains some mention of teleonomy? 131.111.185.47 (talk) 09:36, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * All right, I've put it in, but the term has barely been used by biologists, and frankly it doesn't change anything. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:38, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Meta?
"Feathers today serve the function of flight, but they were co-opted rather than adapted for this task, having evolved for an earlier purpose in theropods like Sinornithosaurus millenii, perhaps insulation."

Normally I'd change 'purpose' to 'function' with an edit summary of 'beware teleological language', but is it, in this context, deliberate? DS (talk) 16:26, 12 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's fine here, teleology is the topic. BTW function is just as teleological, just has a misleading air of scienciness about it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:37, 12 September 2023 (UTC)