Teleological Science?

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His basic point is that adaptation in biological organisms only travels downstream, but adaptation in designed systems travels across all boundaries in all directions, precisely because there's an intelligence behind the process. That's how Eldridge looks for intelligence and work and, finding that absent in biological systems, he concludes there's no intelligence at work.

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The fact that we can classify species in an objective nested hierarchy is very strong evidence of a genealogical relationship between the species. It basically proves beyond a reasonable doubt that every species wasn't created from scratch by an intelligent creator. But the evidence doesn't say that life in general wasn't created by an intelligence or whether evolution isn't goal-oriented somehow.Wrt to a teleological theory of evolution, I think it would be rather obvious. Say there was an ultimate goal that life was evolving towards. Wouldn't the long periods of stasis in the record show that this isn't the case? My logic is as follows: It seems to me that in the course of millions of years the organism would evolve to a design better approximating the end product or goal. And though the number of possible designs may be restricted by the environment, I find it hard to believe that it would be restricted to one.Not the most watertight argument, but that's my general idea. Edited by humoshi, : Clarification

...consider Dawkins biomorph program. This is a good model of a teleological process. The user has an ultimate goal in mind and searches throughout the variants every generation to find the one which best approximates it. This variant is then used as a template to produce more variants, and the process continues until the goal is reached.My argument basically says it would be unlikely that so many generations would go by without the metaphorical "user" choosing a variant which better approximates its goal.

Well, the word de-evolve isn't really in my vocabulary so I have trouble following your arguments. I'll try and clarify what I am talking about, though.It seems to me that teleology can be reconciled with a genealogical view of life in two ways (not exclusive):1.) There is a purpose driven selector which chooses different variations each generation in accord with its final goal for life2.) Variation each generation isn't random but is being directed towards an ultimate goal.With regard to the first view, I was using an analogy with artificial selection and using Dawkins Biomorph program to illustrate my point. An applet can be found at:Atheism v. TheismEach generation, the user selects the variant with best approximates the final design desired, and that variant acts as a template for the next generation. This would be one way in which teleology can be realized.So there would be two factors that would contribute to the "fitness" of a design, i.e., its chance of being around in the next generation: 1. How well it is adapted to the environment, and 2. How well it conforms to the plan of the "selector". If this is the case, it would seem that there would have to be some designs in nature which are sub-optimal for reasons which cannot be explained by developmental constraint or constraints the environment puts on the organism's design.But also, it would seem unlikely that there would be large periods of little or no change. For even if a design is well adapted to the environment and any new variation would be selected out by stabilizing forces of natural selection, it wouldn't be perfect with regard to the purpose or plan of the selector and therefore change should still be occurring within the lineage.Now with regard to directed mutation or variation, I think that could be demonstrated by direct observation. That is, we should notice variation having bias towards a particular design over another. I dont' think we see that.This issue is very confusing and I haven't come close to exhausting all possibilites. I think this arises because the nature of teleology is so vague, i.e., what plan or purpose is there? Until that can be articulated it is very hard to say whether teleology can be tested or not. Edited by humoshi, : Grammar

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However, how do we define "little or no change".

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Maybe look at the gross morphology of fossil organisms and track it through time.

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Maybe not all organisms are in the plan for change?

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Yeah, that's what I was talking about when I wrote: Is the plan for every lineage or just a few? What is the nature of the plan? Are there programmed stops in the plan? Does the selector take a break everyonce in a while?It seems like the topic gets extremely messy and I think the idea of a general telelogy with specifics is unfalsifiable. Edited by humoshi, : No reason given.