Teleology Today

Teleology is a very specialized philosphophical discipline that once, but no longer, is considered to be rooted in real world science. It is the idea that there is a purpose to things. There is still a vestigal presence in biology, but it has been removed, as too unscientific, in most academic sciences.

And yet, there is the evidence of the evidence of evidence itself. The universe's seeming habit of ignoring its own laws of entropy and constantly developing into higher and higher patterns of self-organizing, increasingly complex entities: galaxies, people, moles, oats, etc..

I've been reading a lot of Terence McKenna and others who posit that it is exactly a teleological horizon that sits in wait for us on the otherside of history, not so far from us now.

Has teleology gotten a bad rap? Is it good to remove concepts such as purpose from the universe, since we've decided that lots of monkey's could just as easily typed up a better universe anyway? I'm at a loss.

Could just be the fever, of course...

ColoradoGuy said:

I guess I don't quite understand your question because I don't see any controversy, at least among scientists. As you point out, teleology is about religion and philosophy, not science. Teleology is about the purpose of things. The word comes from Aristotle's Metaphysics, in which he posits four "causes" of a thing: material, formal, efficient, and final. The final cause, the telic, cause, is the reason it exists, its purpose.

There always has been a tension in science about purpose, especially in popularizations of science. Although Darwin changed everything, it is still tempting to say that, for example, the "purpose" of the hollow bones of a bird is to aid in flight. High school science lectures often tip-toe down that divide.

I don't think teleology has "gotten a bad rap"; it just has no place in scientific investigation.

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I think you're too close to see the problem, as most people are these days, good GC. Science tells us that there is no purpose, everything is just a fucking accident. And yet, the universe can seem to be brimming with purpose. As you say, in biology teleology slips in, but it's always followed by the note of the divide which you mentioned.

Why doesn't teleology have a place in scientific investigation? Because science castrated itself with its own tools of disbelief? I still like the why questions, and science doesn't like the why questions. That's why science and I shall ever never be such good friends. that's why.

teleology is not theology.

Chris P said:

*slaps forehead*

Oh, good grief. Ignore me.

*blushes* This, folks, is why I don't participate in these threads. Even if I read them correctly I'm off in my own world.

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Chris, I had never heard the word until a few weeks ago. Don't feel bad, please.

ColoradoGuy said:

Science isn't telling us there's no purpose. It has nothing to say one way or the other. It tries to describe what is, and really has nothing to say about if it's accidental or not.

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I don't know...I think if we got some of our scientist/atheist friends they might make that claim.

Your noble defense of science is just too loveable to fight. But science infers things about the world, it seeps into the culture, into our minds, in ways its methodology would actually forbid, and creates religion of its own.

But, ultimately, you are right, of course.

Chris P said:

Nah, I feel bad at my reading skills! PhD level? Me? Really?

Nevertheless, I think my comments aren't too off about how scientists view the "purpose" of things. I think as people many scientists--I've read studies that in the US most scientists--do believe in a final purpose of the universe, but we sometimes have to walk a dual path between faith and objective observation. Until purpose can be objectively measured, scientists are reluctant to make conclusions as scientists (but not as people) about what they are seeing.

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You were dead on, actually, Chris. That's why when you slipped theology in there, I was cornfused. They are very similar in some ways.