Darwinian teleology; and, did David Store disprove Darwin at all?

A couple of months ago I wrote several entries in which I pointed out how the Darwinists, who radically deny any teleology or purposeful direction in evolution, which they say is purely the result of accidental mutations which are selected because they help the possessor survive longer and have more offspring, nevertheless make continual recourse to teleological ways of talking about evolution. I said that the reason for this phenomenon was that “the Darwinists, being human, cannot fully accept a non-teleological description of the world (because a non-teleological description of the world is radically untrue!), and so they add teleology onto their non-teleological scheme.”

It turns out that I am not the first person to have had this insight into Darwinism. The late Australian philosopher David Stove developed the same idea at some length in his 1994 book, Darwinian Fairytales. Stove’s book is a bit odd, and I haven’t yet gotten into it. The oddity is that he accepts Darwinism overall, and only says that Darwinism is not true for humans, since it is obviously not the case that humans are engaged in an incessant competition for survival in which only a few individuals in each generation survive to bear offspring. As Stove says of his own idea, this fatal flaw in Darwinism (at least as related to humans) is one of those utterly obvious things that no one had ever noticed before.

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[Deleted Name] writes:

I suspect a lot of people are bothered by Darwinian teleology but are so frustrated by its ubiquity or by the thick-headedness of people who accept it as a given, that they don’t do much about it. Back in high school I used to do plenty of ranting at the breakfast table when I came across newspaper or magazine articles that took this approach to evolution, and my parents would say, “hmm, I guess so,” but nobody ever really seemed to care and as you can see, I never wrote a book about it. So you’re certainly not the first person to notice the contradiction, but you are one of very few people articulating it in a public forum, for which the rest of us are grateful.

One book that demonstrates this fallacy particularly well is Michael Pollen’s The Botany of Desire. There is a lot of interesting stuff about the history of how and why people have selected certain traits in plants, but there is a lot of rubbish about why certain mutations occurred, and how evolutionary processes follow certain patterns because their goal is such and such, and it is even implied that these plants he discusses made a conscious decision to evolve in certain ways so that people would cultivate them. A friend, who is usually a highly logical person, liked the book and summed up its theme as “plants are using us.” I liked it for the most part too, but when I tried to explain why this idea of plants taking advantage of us made no sense within the context of random, godless evolution, she agreed that I had a point but she preferred to think that the plants were using us to further their own plans, That sort of conversation is why I’ve never made much of an effort to argue against Darwinian teleology.

LA replies:

I just want to underscore that when Laura was in high school she realized the contradiction that Darwinism formally denies teleology, but that Darwinians constantly use teleological language.

Jim N. writes:

“The oddity is that he accepts Darwinism overall, and only says that Darwinism is not true for humans, since it is obviously not the case that humans are engaged in an incessant competition for survival in which only a few individuals in each generation survive to bear offspring.”

It’s been awhile since I read Stove’s book, but as I recall, his argument isn’t against the idea of evolution in some form. It’s against Darwin’s version of it. (Thus, it is not accurate to call Stove a Darwinian.) As you say, the principle Darwin cites for the production of new species is natural selection, or “the survival of the fittest.” And that’s a perfectly fine principle when only unintelligent beings are involved. But once man is inserted into the equation, the principle breaks down. For example, man now has, potentially, the ability to preserve and destroy species at will. But how does artificially preserving a species that may not be as fit to survive as another one square with the idea of “survival of the fittest?” If man kills every snail darter in existence due to his desire to build things in its habitat, then that, according to Darwinian theory, should be fine. Obviously, in the long run, the snail darter was not fit to survive in the face of its human competitors. But if we on the other hand restrain our desire to build and artificially prop up the snail darter population, we have completely destroyed the logic of Darwinian natural selection.

I don’t remember whether Stove presents this exact argument or not, but it is representative, I think, of what he’s saying—and if so, he’s quite right.

LA replies:

I only jumped around in the book before returning it to the library, but my definite recollection is that he completely accepts Darwinian theory, except as it relates to man. Second, it’s incorrect to say that natural selection is the principle that produces new species; rather it is random variation plus natural selection.

Thucydides writes:

Regarding Stove, he makes the point that Darwin has set forth a comprehensive general theory of the origin of species. Survival pressure on populations is what causes selection. For Darwin, the light bulb came on when he reflected on Malthus, who held (falsely we now know) that species always expand to the limits of the food supply. Until then, many had seen the similarity of forms, but nobody had come up with a comprehensive explanation of the origin of species.

Now if it is ever true that some population for some considerable period of time, as appears to be the case with humans, was not under pressure, the theory fails, not just as to that species, but altogether. If there are periods of time for one species in which there was no pressure, there could be such periods for other species. If all you can say is, well, maybe there sometimes there is pressure, then simply as a matter of pure logic you have nothing left of the theory as a comprehensive explanation. You are back to where we were when Darwin took up his pen.

This doesn’t mean that some sorts of “evolution” in the sense of differential survivability have taken place. Stove just makes the case that Darwin’s theory fails to provide any comprehensive explanation. Put another way, we have no adequate purely materialist explanation of how things came to be.

The fact that the neo-Darwinists keep lapsing into teleological comment is highly revealing. It shows they too are in fact a faith community even if they don’t know it. There is this difference; their faith (that there is an adequate comprehensive materialist explanation) is clearly wrong, whereas the faith of others (in a transcendent creation) is by its very nature never subject to proof or disproof. The first faith is irrational, the second non-rational.

By the way, I write this as a non-religious person.

LA replies:

“Now if it is ever true that some population for some considerable period of time, as appears to be the case with humans, was not under pressure, the theory fails, not just as to that species, but altogether.”

I don’t see the logic of this at all. The theory says that pressure is needed for there to be high mortality and thus natural selection of special traits that results in evolution. That doesn’t mean that all life forms all the time must be under pressure for the theory to be true. There could be long periods without pressure, and without evolution.

Mark G. writes:

Teleological language from supporters does not demonstrate that Darwinism is false; all that it does show is that, like anybody else, they sometimes fall victim to sloppy language and imprecise thinking. People always have and always will attribute intentionality to things that don’t have it; it’s just how we’re wired. Animism is mankind’s default position; even among us sophisticated moderns, few are above cursing at the car or the computer, or seeing anger in a storm or volcano. The fact that we have a lot of trouble thinking and talking about evolution without teleology proves nothing about evolution; it speaks only to our own flaws and biases.

LA replies:

First, I agree with you that the use of teleological language does not by itself prove that Darwinism is false. I don’t believe I have ever said that it does. I have said, however, that it is another of the many factors that puts the theory into doubt.

Second, it’s not just “supporters,” it’s the leading thinkers who write this way, all the time.

Third, if they can’t make it believable without teleological language, that strongly suggests that the theory itself is not believable even to its own supposed believers and promoters. At the very least, it shows that the Darwinian enterprise is a grand fraud on the public. A Dawkins who for decades fills the world with “selfish gene” and “the gene uses the organism to propagate itself,” and then turns around and lightly says that that is just a way of speaking, for the sake of illustration, is a LIAR. He is a liar because he was deliberately making people believe that genes have a purpose, then, after he’s spread this idea through the culture, in order to cover himself, he denies responsibility for having said that. (It’s as dishonest as Oliver Stone giving a press conference and saying that the conspiracy in “JFK” is just a fiction, after he’s convinced millions of people that the conspiracy is historical fact.)

Fourth, the use of the teleological language goes to the metaphysical lie at the heart of the issue, namely that evolution in fact is OBVIOUSLY teleological, and that the whole purpose of Darwinism was to come up with a non-teleological explanation for this obviously teleological phenomenon. But this grand random materialist explanation for that which inherently cannot be explained by random materialism is so obviously untrue, that even its promoters cannot maintain the front. Every moment of physical, chemical, cosmic, biological, and conscious existence is bathed in teleology. The effort to deny that fact keeps collapsing of its own transparent falsity.

Jim N. writes:

“I only jumped around in the book before returning it to the library, but my definite recollection is that he completely accepts Darwinian theory, except as it relates to man.”

Then I think you’re entirely missing Stove’s point. Science is about causes. Darwin cites as the cause of natural selection the struggle for survival amongst all creatures. But at least in some cases where man is involved, there is no such struggle. Therefore, the struggle for survival cannot be the (sole) cause, or adequate explanation, of the evolution of species.

Stove is an evolutionist, but not a Darwinist. These are not the same thing. One can theoretically propose a principle of selection not having essentially to do with the struggle for existence as the cause of evolution, but then one will not be a Darwinist, because Darwin in fact proposes only the struggle for existence as such a cause. Stove’s book is called Darwinian Fairytales—not Evolutionist Fairytales—for a reason.

LA replies:

But man already exists. The human species has already been originated. So assuming Stove is correct that natural selection does not take place at the human level, all that he has established is that natural selection is not a factor in changes that occur within the human species. So Stove has not disproved Darwin’s theory of the origin of species at all.

Also, one reason I didn’t feel drawn into the book was its desultory, disorganized quality. He jumps around, going after the Darwinians on this and that point. But he doesn’t come out and say, here is what I think, this is my approach. Given his highly idiosyncratic position which needed to be laid out clearly, this was a problem.

Jim N. writes:

Well, I’d better stop arguing Stove’s case since I don’t have his book in front of me and it’s been years since I read it. My own position is this: if man artificially props up species and allows them to survive when they would otherwise perish, then it is no longer the fittest—i.e. for Darwin, those most adapted to survive the tooth-and-nail struggle for existence—who are surviving, and any species deriving from them will not have come into being through merit (so to speak), but merely due to man’s “compassion.” To this, someone might respond that, in some weird way, it is still the fittest who are surviving because to survive is to be by definition “the fittest.” Those species that meet with man’s compassion or whatever are the strongest and fittest, within the context of man, and have therefore survived. I answer that that creates a tautology. To define the fittest as those that survive renders Darwin’s principle “those that survive are those that survive,” which is meaningless. No cause is identified.

Also, I agree with you on Darwinian Fairytales. I had the same problem. I think the book could have been reduced to a more focused magazine article and been much more effective.

LA replies:

But it would be worthwhile look at this again. In your (Stovean) scenario, there is no new species that results from man’s activity of propping up some species; indeed man has never produced a species. So what you’re speaking of is a species surviving by some human intervention apart from natural selection, you’re not speaking of the origin of a new species. So, once again, Stove’s argument about the very different conditions of human life from animal life, including man’s ability to direct things, fails to disprove anything about the Darwinian theory of evolution, which is about the creation of new species by random variation and natural selection.

However, it seems to me that Stove’s idea may have an impact on our understanding of intraspecies human variation. The idea that cold weather selected for higher IQ for example. According to Stove the mortality rate, even of early humans, was not high enough to produce natural selection to a sufficient degree to produce new traits. This would throw out the Philippe Rushton / Richard Lynn approach which has been popular in recent years.

At the same time, the cold weather theory seems very strong. Take for example example the lack of melanin in people living high latitudes. That seems like very strong evidence, amounting to almost certain proof, that variations within the human species appear as a result of natural selection. The idea is that northern people lack the melanin their southern ancestors had because, as early humans moved north between 50,000 and 30,000 years ago, people with a lot of melanin had a tough time, because they didn’t get enough Vitamin D. Since there is a natural range of varation in any trait within a population, some individuals had notably less melanin than most. The individuals who had less melanin and thus were able to get more Vitamin D tended to survive to adulthood and have children more than those with more melanin. Progressively the population acquired much less melanin. (See also my discussion of melanin and Vitamin D in my review of Michael Hart’s book here.)

Now, I believe that the low-sunlight selection theory is highly plausible. I don’t know it’s true (for all I know there is a Lamarckian intelligent organic response by the species to the conditions of living in the higher altitude, which has nothing to do with natural selection), but it’s very plausible.

But according to Stove, the theory is impossible, because humans never had the extremely high mortality rates needed to produce natural selection; in one passage in his book he says that natural selection would require 80 percent childhood mortality, and that this was never the case or was very unlikely. . In which case, we’d have to look for an entirely different explanation for the dramatic racial differences, including differences in IQ, between tropical races and northern races. I need to go back to Stove and see if he discusses this.

Also, we need to find out from the evolutionists, what is the mortality rate required to produce human racial differentiation by natural selection? It does seem to be the case, as Stove wonderingly points out, that no one had raised this obvious question before he came along

Thucydides writes:

You wrote:

I don’t see the logic of this at all. The theory says that pressure is needed for there to be high mortality and thus natural selection of special traits that results in evolution. That doesn’t mean that all life forms all the time must be under pressure for the theory to be true. There could be long periods without pressure, and without evolution.

That is not what Darwin was saying.

Before Darwin wrote, similarity of forms between newer and older species was well known. What was needed was an explanation as to how the newer species may have come from the older ones, and Darwin, under the influence of a belated recognition of the significance of Malthus, provided it. Why do new species evolve from older ones? Natural variation followed by superior survivability.

If all species at all times are under pressure, the explanation could hold as a universally valid theory. If not, it is nothing. To say that newer species may sometimes come about from pressure, if and when it exists, is pretty thin stuff. It is like saying maybe at times there was some population pressure that coincided with a beneficial mutation somehow related to that pressure (mutations are quite rare, often fatal, and positive ones even rarer). This would allow for full survivability of predecessor forms much of the time. This is not an adequate answer as to how all species came about, and why others disappear. This would be a theory of random variation and broad survivability, with species disappearance due to usually unknown contingencies (drought, famine, etc.). This latter view, which may well be the truth for all we know, produces no intellectual excitement because it has no teleological component, however disguised. It does not furnish a substitute eschatology for the “enlightened.”

Note that I am not saying anything about the idea that species evolve from predecessors; only that Darwin has failed to produce a comprehensive explanation of all evolution, which was what he purported to do.

How did evolution come about? I think the right answer, as intellectually humiliating as it is for us children of the Enlightenment, is that we just don’t know. Secular liberals hate it because it humbles their pretensions, and seems to leave the door open to theological speculation.

LA replies:

I’m sorry but I don’t follow the logic. Obviously there are periods and places without intense selective pressures because there are species that are unchanged over millions of years. How long has the alligator been around? Millions and millions of years. Does that prove that Darwinian evolution is not true? Of course not. The Darwinian theory of evolution purports to explain the evolution of new species. The theory does not require, in order to be proved true, that all species are evolving into new species all the time.

According to Thucydides, the persistence of the alligator disproves Darwin.

Thucydides writes:

You wrote: “According to Thucydides, the persistence of the alligator disproves Darwin.”

It doesn’t disprove evolution, but the long persistence without any change at all of many species (cockroaches, certain sharks, etc.) is contrary to Darwin’s explanation, which was Stove’s point, and what I have been trying to explain.

LA replies:

I admit I don’t fully get the argument. Maybe I’m looking at my own ideas here instead of considering what Darwinism needs to be in order to be true. I didn’t remember that the long persistence of some species was considered to be one of the disproofs of Darwinism. Or was Stove the first person to make that argument?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 31, 2008 12:30 PM | Send