Evolutionary biologists are usually careful to avoid language that suggests teleological committments. That is, except when talking about mutations. There they use terms such as "mistakes in copying" or "copy error", which suggests that the
purpose was to make an identical copy but some sort of error crept in.
The literature seems to strongly suggest that evolution would not occur if there were none of these "copy errors". So we have an apparently strange system that only works because it doesn't work.
Why not a different terminology, such as using "different" or "discrepancy" instead of "error".
It seems to me that we could consider reproduction to be a creative process of constructing the next generation, with "variation on a theme of ..." as part of the creative process.
What shall it profit a nation if it gain the whole world, yet lose its own soul.
(paraphrasing Mark 8:36)
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