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Article 4505 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: zeleny@zariski.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: Causes and Goals
Message-ID: <1992Mar17.095228.9935@husc3.harvard.edu>
Date: 17 Mar 92 14:52:26 GMT
References: <1992Mar16.031843.14299@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> <1992Mar16.200503.9918@husc3.harvard.edu> <513@trwacs.fp.trw.com>
Organization: Dept. of Math, Harvard Univ.
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In article <513@trwacs.fp.trw.com> 
erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com (Harry Erwin) writes:

HE:
>It is suggested that most evolutionary biologists use functionalist
>explanations of evolution. That is, such and so evolved because...

In fact, Bill Skaggs' suggestion was even more specific, in effect
stipulating that the underlying sausality was final, i.e. that such 
and so evolved in order to...

HE:
>I'm afraid the suggestion is not true. Most evolutionary biologists
>explain evolutionary change from a perspective of _random_ variation and
>then selection based on relative fitness. (Fitness being best defined as
>the long-term geometric average number of descendents, when weighted by
>relatedness--note that inclusive fitness includes descendents of
>relatives, exclusive fitness includes only one's own descendents.) Thus
>what we see is what has survived, and involves no teleology. Hence such
>and so evolved because it survived and the alternatives didn't... 

Such has been my understanding, attained as a result of an admittedly
superficial acquaintance with evolutionary biology; still, one could
rightfully claim that evolutionary theories amount to a way of legitimizing
teleological discourse in a generally materialistic setting.  Whether the
idiom of final causality is theoretically irreducible, or ultimately
explicable in terms of efficient cause (as claims, e.g. Richard Dawkins),
is indeed a controversial issue.

>   Cheers,
>
>-- 
>Harry Erwin
>Internet: erwin@trwacs.fp.trw.com

`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'
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: Mikhail Zeleny                                                     :
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