{"id":7542,"date":"2016-03-06T10:17:33","date_gmt":"2016-03-06T10:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=7542"},"modified":"2016-03-06T10:17:33","modified_gmt":"2016-03-06T10:17:33","slug":"teleology-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/teleology-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"Teleology Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I wonder about <em>New\u00a0<\/em><em>Scientist <\/em>magazine. \u00a0A recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2078276-plants-have-evolved-forgetfulness-to-wipe-out-memory-of-stress\/\" target=\"_blank\">article<\/a>\u00a0on plant evolution is encased in a teleological argument:<br \/>\n&#8220;Plants have evolved forgetfulness to wipe out memory of stress&#8221;<br \/>\nAn entity may do action A which has consequence X. But that is very different to saying that the entity did action A in order to achieve outcome X. The theory of evolution makes no assumptions of intentionality. Indeed, quite the reverse &#8211; the classical Darwinian theory assumes that outcomes of evolutionary processes (whether non-detrimental or not) are the result of changes (eg, mutations) that happen apparently by random chance. Only with epigenetics and modern Lamarckism is there perhaps a role for non-random changes.<br \/>\nMoreover, evolution is a theory at the species level and across time. It makes no sense to talk about evolution of an individual or of a single generation. Yet only individual plants and animals have any intentionality. \u00a0Who or what is the entity that could have an intention for a species to evolve towards a certain goal? The entity would have to be both a cross-individual and a cross-generational collective. Ain&#8217;t such a thing, at least not in the material realm.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I wonder about New\u00a0Scientist magazine. \u00a0A recent article\u00a0on plant evolution is encased in a teleological argument: &#8220;Plants have evolved forgetfulness to wipe out memory of stress&#8221; An entity may do action A which has consequence X. But that is very different to saying that the entity did action A in order to achieve outcome X. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-joint-action-society","category-science","p1","y2016","m03","d06","h10"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}