Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose?

So is evolution purposeful? One human purpose aims to 'explain evolution' and whether we are a normal or special part of it, either physically or culturally. Can we even explain our desire for explanations, which serves the purpose of seeing order and design, rather than chaos, in the cosmos? Michael Ruse is confidently thorough in probing these questions. "Wants and desires imply consciousness, intention; values imply a mind." The arguments go back to Plato who formulated the "argument to design" which acknowledges that design exists to be explained and distinguished it from the "argument for design" which assumes a designer, Demiurge, creator or cosmic mind. These are age-old questions, whether asked by present day creationists, intelligent design advocates or evolutionists. Ultimately the arguments to and for design address Aristotle's perplexing questions about the 'final causes' of phenomena. Aristotle distinguished between external teleology (Platonic creator-deity) and internal, biological teleology of organisms which indicates final causes (or purposes), like food for growth or organs that exist to make organisms whole. With such purposes, one cannot "drop consciousness out of the picture."

The Christian tradition (from Augustine to Aquinus) never needed to prove God's existence: the power of revelation did this adequately. Only with the scientific revolution did the reasoned argument from design become necessary. Even skeptics, like David Hume, took the argument seriously and had to introduce the problem of evil (theodicy) to undermine it. Far from explaining away cosmic design and order, reason became its advocate. Newton had been "virtually intoxicated with the idea of God" and his contemporary Robert Boyle (of gas law fame) argued for an "intelligent designing agent" especially in the complex, biological world. Kant also concluded that final cause teleology was essential to biology: each species is both cause and effect, producing and propagating itself (purposefully). Likewise, in the noumenal world, purpose and order must exist if we are to function rationally, socially, morally. The phenomenal world may not prove cosmic design (external teleology) but we can not avoid seeing design/order through the lens of our consciousness. [Here, I think, is the crux of the dynamic consciousness paradigm: intelligent reason creates the conceptual possibility of an intelligently designed world. Before, it was a non issue. Magic or mythic paradigms had their own corresponding perceptions. The phenomenal world is infinitely compliant to noumenal partnership. We see what we see because of how we see].

The idea of evolution developed from 18th century philosophies of progress, not biology. Meanwhile, thinkers like Kant, Whewell, Owen, Goethe, Lamarck, Cuvier and Geoffroy St. Hilaire, were preoccupied with 'organization,' connections, 'homologies' and final causes, rarely thinking much, or specifically, in terms of evolution as we now know it. Thus, Ruse's chapter on Darwin opens with the fascinating observation that professional biologist have, since 1859, interpreted Origin of Species both as highly teleological and fundamentally non-teleological. Is teleology largely in the eye of the beholder. Natural selection may appear not to need a divine plan until, as Darwin noted, one considers the prime mover, perhaps concluding that the evolutionary process has an overarching purpose. Such design by wholesale may appear more purposeful than the retail version.

Darwin 'imbibed and accepted' Paley's natural theology and its Platonic external theology. He could 'scarcely doubt final cause' design was God's natural law. Natural selection was adaptive for purposeful progressive advantage - 'the creation of higher animals.' Thus, homology and other signs of organised design were explained through the 'selection' metaphor. Wallace regarded this as anthropomorphic and suggested using Spencer's 'survival of the fittest' phrase. Although the stereotype is that English, Darwinian selectionism trumped Germanic Nature Philosophy by dispelling mysterious platonic notions, the Germans (especially Ernst Haeckel) actually promoted Darwin's evolutionism, and debated, with Huxley and others, over how much teleology was allowed. (Did organism develop "like a rifle bullet fired straight at its mark" or like hit-and-miss grapeshot, where only a few survive in any given conditions). Darwin wanted to separate philosophising about the overall plan from his specific aim of understanding selective mechanisms amenable to scientific investigation.

Evolution became a secular religion (progressivism) long before it was a professional science. Even 100 years after the Origin (in 1959) two leading experts Ronald Fisher and Theodosius Dobzhansky were committed Christians, though only Fisher was a staunch believer is God's 'selectionist-adaptive' plan. From this time onwards, philosophers (like Ruse) showed serious interest in evolutionary biology, including genetics, kin selection and reproductive 'strategies' (note teleological language). Some species (capybara) produce males when they are strong and well-feed but spontaneously abort females when weak. This kin-selection pattern plays out in human infanticide as 'deliberate' cultural, rather than biological, behavior. This means humans may adopt super-Darwinian artificial selection strategies. Ruse shows how Darwinian functionalism, selection and adaptation imply design and keep teleological debate alive (as even Dawkins admits).

Since functionalism never triumphed completely, the 'formalism' alternative (Germanic morphological types, bauplans etc.,) has survived and, with new evolution of development studies (Hox genes etc.,), has made a dramatic comeback indicating a major "sea change." Ultimate questions of purpose remain the same. "Is there some overall purpose [design] to the history of life?" do humans occupy a special place (as a long-term rather than short-term final cause). Kant remains right, says Ruse: our consciousness requires us to see natural order regardless of whether it has independent meaning for the rest of nature. Our upward struggle, makes evolution appear to have the same goals (such as increased complexity, autonomy and free will).

Ruse only mentions the Intelligent Design (ID) debate in his final chapter. He seems genuinely tolerant of the more intelligent ID advocates, but ultimately concludes they are "simply wrong." This is Ruse's style: he breezily reviews all reasonable arguments, then somewhat over-confidently dismisses those he judges wrong and endorses those deemed right. As he does in his lectures and other books backs Darwinism and supports many Dawkins' conclusions. Nevertheless, he concludes lyrically that authentic biologists can be "intensely religious" (contra Dawkins) without holding theological beliefs. Thus, he suggests we can replace "natural theology" with "a theology of nature that sees and appreciates the complex, adaptive glory of the living world." "What moved the natural theologians of old … still moves the evolutionists of today" Here Ruse draws a fine line. He appears to suggest that by committing to the Darwinian process of adaptation we find God in nature, rather than as an external or supernatural prime mover. Is this shift from external to internal teleology something new, or just the evolution of theology moving synchronously with the evolution of science and consciousness?