Biological adaptation: dependence or independence from environment?

1970 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-102
Author(s):  
Jolanta Koszteyn ◽  
Piotr Lenartowicz
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Biological Traits ◽  
Great Role ◽  
Biological Adaptation ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
Design In Nature ◽  
Living Being ◽  
Special Creation

Since more than hundred years the attempts to explain biological adaptations constitute the main current of evolutionary thinking. In 1901 C. LI. Morgan wrote: „The doctrine of evolution has rendered the study of adaptation of scientific importance. Before that doctrine was formulated, natural adaptations formed part of the mystery of special creation, and played a great role in natural theology through the use of the argument from 'design in nature’". The modem doctrine of biology stresses the importance of the environment in „shaping" the inner properties of every living being. This means an obvious although tacit refusal to assume or recognize any single, integrated agent in the origin of main functional biological traits and in the genesis of new kinds of life. The role ascribed to random mutations, and to „pressures of the environment" is just one aspect of the neodarwinian theory. Another aspect of this doctrine is the widespread conviction that all phenomena of life are a natural, both random and necessary result of interactions between constantly changing material objects.

Charles Darwin and Intelligent Design

2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-42
Author(s):  
Denis O. Lamoureux ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Historical Literature ◽  
The World ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
Design In Nature

Many assume that Charles Darwin rejected outright the notion of intelligent design. As a consequence, the term "Darwinism" has evolved to become conflated with a dysteleological interpretation of evolution. The primary historical literature reveals that Darwin's conceptualization of design was cast within the categories of William Paley's natural theology, featuring static and perfect adaptability. Once Darwin discovered the mechanism of natural selection and the dynamic process of biological evolution, he rejected the "old argument from design in Nature" proposed by Paley. However, he was never able to ignore the powerful experience of the creation's revelatory activity. Darwin's encounter with the beauty and complexity of the world affirms a Biblical understanding of intelligent design and argues for the reality of a non-verbal revelation through nature. In a postmodern culture with epistemological fourmulations adrift, natural revelation provides a mooring for human felicity.

Nature, History and the Search for Order: The Boyle Lectures, 1730–1785

2010 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 276-292
Author(s):  
Robert G. Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Historical Turn ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
Design In Nature

History supplanted nature as the most important apologetical language among English polemical divines during the mid-eighteenth century, but not for the reasons usually adduced. The triumph of history over nature owed everything to the power of orthodox patronage and to nature’s demonstrable apologetical efficacy, and nothing to natural theology’s supposed failure sufficiently to prove God’s existence. Put another way, by the late 1720s orthodox apologists had come to believe that the popular argument from design in nature applied equally to history. Moreover, the argument from design in history appears to have been an apologetical strategy which accorded more closely with the disposition of an increasingly orthodox episcopate during the mid-century period. Little evidences the mid-century historical turn — a shift either missed or ignored by most historians — more clearly than the second generation (1730–1785) of the Boyle lectures, a series of public sermons founded by Robert Boyle in order to defend Christianity from the attacks of unbelievers. For whereas the first generation of lecturers founded their defences of Christianity on natural theology, the second built on Christianity’s historical record.

The Problems of Biological Design

2005 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 177-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Lewens
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Good Design ◽  
Biological Design ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
Design In Nature

Here is one way that philosophers and biologists sometimes speak of Darwin's explanatory innovation: ‘Eyes, organs of echolocation, camouflage and the like are all wonderful instances of contrivance, of complex adaptation, of good design. Paley and the other natural theologians sought to explain this good design by appeal to an intelligent designer. Darwin, on the other hand, offers us a superior explanation for the appearance of this same property: Darwin shows us that we can explain good design through the action of selection. Indeed, selection is the only process that can explain good design in nature. And that is why evolutionary biologists can continue to use a version of the argument from design called the argument from biological design: when we see an instance of good design in nature, we should infer not the guiding hand of God, but the hand of selection at work.’

scholarly journals Students’ “teleological misconceptions” in evolution education: why the underlying design stance, not teleology per se, is the problem

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kostas Kampourakis
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Evolution Education ◽  
Teleological Explanation ◽  
Inherent Feature ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Selection For ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
Design In Nature ◽  
Design Stance

AbstractTeleology, explaining the existence of a feature on the basis of what it does, is usually considered as an obstacle or misconception in evolution education. Researchers often use the adjective “teleological” to refer to students’ misconceptions about purpose and design in nature. However, this can be misleading. In this essay, I explain that teleology is an inherent feature of explanations based on natural selection and that, therefore, teleological explanations are not inherently wrong. The problem we might rather address in evolution education is not teleology per se but the underlying “design stance”. With this I do not refer to creationism/intelligent design, and to the inference to a creator from the observation of the apparent design in nature (often described as the argument from design). Rather, the design stance refers to the intuitive perception of design in nature in the first place, which seems to be prevalent and independent from religiosity in young ages. What matters in evolution education is not whether an explanation is teleological but rather the underlying consequence etiology: whether a trait whose presence is explained in teleological terms exists because of its selection for its positive consequences for its bearers, or because it was intentionally designed, or simply needed, for this purpose. In the former case, the respective teleological explanation is scientifically legitimate, whereas in the latter case it is not. What then should be investigated in evolution education is not whether students provide teleological explanations, but which consequence etiologies these explanations rely upon. Addressing the design stance underlying students’ teleological explanations could be a main aim of evolution education.

Elie Bertrand (1713-1797) Sees God's Order in Nature's Record: The 1766 Recueil De Divers Traites Sur L'Historie Naturelle

1991 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kennard Bork
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Earth ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Design In Nature ◽  
Theoretical Analyses ◽  
Insight Into

Elie Bertrand (1713-1797) was a Swiss pastor/naturalist whose geological writings are illustrative of the growth of eighteenth-century natural history. Describing, cataloguing, and classifying formed the core of his work, but he also proposed theoretical analyses based on observations in the field. Bertrand's intellectual roots included Cartesian rationalism, British natural theology, and the Linnacan system of classification. Trained as a theologian. Bertrand viewed the physical world as a proving ground for showing God's Wise Design in nature. He was also committed to empiricism, and repeatedly called for expanding the base of geological knowledge.Several of the published products of Bertrand's attempts to understand the natural world were brought together in the 1766 Recueil de divers traités sur l'histoire naturelle. By briefly considering each of the incorporated papers, it is possible to recognize the topics which interested eighteenth-century naturalists and to develop insight into the methodologies they used. In the Recueil we see Bertrand's eclectic epistemology attempt to deal with such topics as the interior of the earth, earthquakes, fossils, and the origin and Providential use of mountains.Celebrated in his day, Bertrand was a correspondent of Voltaire, a counselor to the Polish court, and a member of numerous learned societies. He published articles in the French Encyclopédic, and his 1763 Dictionnaire universal des fossiles was among the most-read scientific books of the century. The obscurity which enveloped Elie Bertrand seems related in large part to the fact that he was an accumulator of data and a commentator about past theories, rather than an innovator of new concepts. As the natural theology that undergirded his writing became obsolete, the cogency of his arguments diminished. In the context of his time, however, Bertrand is an instructive example of how geoscience matured during what has been termed a sterile period in the development of natural history.

The Argument From Design

Philosophy ◽  
1957 ◽  
Vol 32 (122) ◽  
pp. 219-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas McPherson
Keyword(s):  
Natural Theology ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Religious Truth ◽  
Natural Theologian ◽  
Empirical Theology ◽  
Argument From Design

“NATURAL theology” is generally used as the name of a study which seeks to “get at religious truth” by the use of man's reasoning powers, and not to expound revelation. But I want to limit its application to part of this field. By natural theology I mean here a study which seeks to “get at religious truth” by an empirical examination of things, and not by “pure reason.” It is a (would–be) “scientific” theology. An example of a natural theologian in this sense would be, I suppose, the author of any one of the Bridgewater Treatises, or Paley, or F. R. Tennant. Perhaps I might have called this kind of theology “empirical theology” (or “empiricist theology”); but I do not want to invent new terms more than I have to.

scholarly journals “We Don't Want Any German Sausages Here!” Food, Fear, and the German Nation in Victorian and Edwardian Britain

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 1017-1042 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keir Waddington
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
German Immigrants ◽  
Economic Threat ◽  
The World ◽  
German Nation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Formed Part

AbstractThis essay brings together aspects of the history of science, food, and culture, and applies them to the study of Anglo-German relations and perceptions by examining how between 1850 and 1914 the German sausage was used as a metaphor for the German nation. The essay shows how the concerns that became attached to German sausages not only provide a way of understanding Britain's interaction with Germany but also reveal further dimensions to popular anti-German sentiment. Alarm about what went into German sausages formed part of a growing strand of popular opposition to Germany, which drew on increasing insecurity about Britain's position on the world stage and the perceived economic threat that Germany and German immigrants presented. Such sentiment was translated into how Germans were caricatured and onto material objects—in this case, the “deadly mysteries” that were feared to go into German sausages. Cultural and gastronomic stereotypes overlapped in a discourse that linked Germany and Germans to their national diet and aggressive nature, as well as associated German sausages with fears about diseased meat, adulteration, and the risks that eating them entailed. The result was that the German sausage was used as a staple for satirical comic representations of Germany, as representative of dishonesty in food production, and as a xenophobic slur. Around the German sausage, anti-German sentiment and questions of food safety merged and became mutually reinforcing.

The Uses of Natural Theology in Seventeenth-Century England

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Mandelbrote
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Correct Interpretation ◽  
Alternative Strategies ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Divine Power ◽  
John Wilkins ◽  
Argument From Design ◽  
Spiritual Phenomena ◽  
The Universe

ArgumentThis essay describes two styles of natural theology that emerged in England out of a debate over the correct interpretation of divine evidences in nature during the seventeenth century. The first style was exemplified in the work of John Wilkins and Robert Boyle. It stressed the lawful operation of the universe under a providential order. The second, embodied in the writings of the Cambridge Platonists, was more open to evidence for the wondrousness of nature provided by the marvelous and by spiritual phenomena. Initially appearing to be alternative and complementary arguments for orthodoxy, these two approaches to natural theology underwent different transformations during the ensuing decades. In the process, a natural theology predicated on the intellectual demonstration of divine power through the argument from design came to predominate over alternative strategies that placed greater emphasis on the wondrousness of nature.

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