the mit press organisms and artifacts design in nature and elsewhere apr 2004

In Organisms and Artifacts Tim Lewens investigates the analogical use of the language of design in evolutionary biology. Uniquely among the natural sciences, biology uses descriptive and explanatory terms more suited to artifacts than organisms. When biologists discuss, for example, the purpose of the panda’s thumb and look for functional explanations of organic traits, they borrow from a vocabulary of intelligent design that Darwin’s findings could have made irrelevant over a hundred years ago. Lewens argues that examin- ing the analogy between the processes of evolution and the processes by which artifacts are created— looking at organisms as analogical artifacts— sheds light on explanations of the form of both organic and inorganic objects. He argues further that understanding the analogy is important for what it can tell us not only about biology but about technology and philosophy. In the course of his argument Lewens discusses issues of interest to philosophers of biology, biologists, philosophers of mind, and students of technology. These issues include the pitfalls of the design-based thinking of adapta- tionism, the possible conflict between selection ORGANISMS AND ARTIFACTS Design in Nature and Elsewhere Tim LEWENS I find the work extremely original and philosophically quite sound. Lewens’s work successfully removes a lot of the irrelevant issues that contrast material theories of evolution by natural selection with notions of human design.” Richard LEWONTIN, Alexander Agassiz Research Professor, Harvard University I had long thought that the topic of function in biology was exhausted. Organisms and Artifacts, Tim Lewens’s splendid new book, shows that I was quite wrong. Lewens unites a deep understanding of biology with a keen nose for a philosophical problem, and he has produced a work that is insightful and (just as important) highly inter- esting. This book will give an old problem really new life, and must be the starting point for all future discussion.” Michael RUSE, Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University ORGANISMS AND ARTIFACTS Lewens The MIT Press Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142 http://mitpress.mit.edu e ORGANISMS AND ARTIFACTS Tim LEWENS e Design in Nature and Elsewhere “ “ ,!7IA2G2-bccgba!:t;K;k;K;k 0-262-12261-8 explanations and developmental explanations, a proposed explanation of biological function, and prospects for an informative evolutionary model of technological change. Emerging from these discussions is an explanation of the use of the vocabulary of intelligence and intention in biology that does not itself draw on the ideas of intelli- gent design, which will be of interest in the on- going debate over intelligent design creationism. Tim Lewens is University Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University. Life and Mind series A BRADFORD BOOK Cover drawing: Vaucanson’s duck (Eco and Zorzoli, The Picture History of Inventions. Macmillan, 1963). Jacket design by Emily Gutheinz. 45629Lewens 3/24/04 12:01 PM Page 1 Lewens-79044 book October 15, 2003 12:19 Organisms and Artifacts Lewens-79044 book October 15, 2003 12:19 Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology Kim Sterelny and Robert A. Wilson, editors Cycles of Contigency: Developmental Systems and Evolution Susan Oyama, Paul E. Griffiths, and Russell D. Gray, editors, 2000 Coherence in Thought and Action Paul Thagard, 2000 Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered Bruce H. Weber and David J. Depew, 2003 Seeing and Visualizing: It’s Not What You Think Zenon Pylyshyn, 2003 The Mind Incarnate Lawrence A. Shapiro, 2004 Organisms and Artifacts: Design in Nature and Elsewhere Tim Lewens, 2004 Lewens-79044 book October 15, 2003 12:19 Organisms and Artifacts Design in Nature and Elsewhere Tim Lewens A Bradford Book The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England Lewens-79044 book October 15, 2003 12:19 © 2004 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or informa- tion storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Sabon by Interactive Composition Corporation and was printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lewens, Tim. Organisms and artifacts : design in nature and elsewhere / Tim Lewens. p. cm. — (Life and mind) “A Bradford Book.” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-12261-8 (hc: alk. paper) 1. Biology—Philosophy. I. Title. II. Series. QH331.L533 2004 570  .1—dc22 2003061768 10987654321 Lewens-79044 book October 15, 2003 12:19 Time out of mind it has been by way of the “final cause,” by the teleological concept of end, of purpose or of “design,” in one of its many forms (for its moods are many), that men have been chiefly wont to explain the phenomena of the living world, and it will be so while men have eyes to see and ears to hear withal. —D’Arcy Thompson, On Growth and Form It [teleology] is important, but my sense is that there is a feeling that basically the subject is worked out. Natural selection produces design-like objects and so function talk is appropriate. . . . Of course, as always in philosophy there is scope for all those bizarre counter-examples to which we all seem so addicted . . . ; but frankly this is the stuff of PhD theses and not the real world. —Michael Ruse, “Booknotes,” Biology and Philosophy Lewens-79044 book October 15, 2003 12:19 Lewens-79044 book October 15, 2003 12:19 Contents Preface ix 1 Meaning and the Means to an Understanding of Ends 1 2 Why Is an Eye? 21 3 Adaptationism and Engineering 39 4OnFive “-Isms” 67 5 Function, Selection, and Explanation 87 6 Deflating Function 119 7 Artifacts and Organisms 139 References 167 Index 177 Lewens-79044 book October 15, 2003 12:19 Lewens-79044 book October 15, 2003 12:19 Preface An outsider who looks at evolutionary biologists’ language might think they are behind the times. What is all this talk of solutions adopted by species to deal with the problems laid down by environments? Why do biologists persist in asking what the peacock’s tail, or the earwig’s second penis, are for? Shouldn’t they have stopped talking about the purpose of the panda’s thumb over a hundred years ago? All this talk smacks of intelligent design—of artifacts, not of organisms. Yet Darwin taught us (or maybe it was Hume) that organisms are not artifacts. What is more, it is often the biologists keenest to distance themselves from any non- sense about intelligent design who are nonetheless the first to trumpet the excellence of design in nature, and who look most eagerly for func- tional explanations for any and all organic traits or behaviors. Could it be that there are vestiges of natural theology lurking in this language of design? This book is an investigation of an analogy—the analogy between the processes of evolution and the processes by which artifacts are cre- ated. I try to show how looking at the two domains together can shed light on how we should explain the form of both organic and inorganic objects, and how our conclusions about natural design can inform var- ious philosophical projects. It is important to understand the organism/ artifact analogy for what it can tell us about biology, technology, and philosophy. This book is addressed primarily at philosophers of biology; this said, I hope also that real biologists, students of technology, philosophers of mind—even some civilians—will find lots to interest them. Chapter 2 looks at biology alone, yet its conclusions are used as foundations for work done in all the remaining chapters, and all types of reader are [...]... have their covering for a double purpose: to keep them at the bottom of the sea, and to protect them when drifted by the tide against rocks Animals of the molluscous division, which inhabit the deep sea, and float singly, or in groups, as the genus scalpa, have a leathern covering only: because they are not liable to the rough movements to which the others are subject, in the advancing and returning... recovering the role of the term in the theory, and hence its meaning in this sense Still, these will be intuitions about biological cases; it is hard to see what role there is for intuitions about screws in machines in uncovering the meaning of the biological function concept So for Hull, the source of frustration with the debate as a whole is different again Here it seems what is at stake is neither the. .. population-level nature of one, and the individual-level nature of the other These disanalogies mean that artifact thinking can lead us to ignore drift, and also to underestimate the functional interconnectedness Meaning and the Means to an Understanding of Ends 17 of organic, as opposed to artificial, design I also tackle the more practical problem of whether artifact thinking—especially in the guises of... up speaking of trees striving to attain the light, preferring instead to understand their motions as the result of mechanical tropisms Only the meteorologists persisted with the old vocabulary Still they would talk of clouds chasing each other across the skies And the models they produced, framed in that vocabulary, had great predictive success Thinking of clouds as chasing each other allowed them to... from the roles of those terms in the theories in which they feature Now on this view, to say what the role of terms like “function” is in biology is also to give an account of the meaning of those terms in biology In this sense it is a conceptual analysis And the intuitions about use, of those well versed in the theory in question the intuitions of biologists and well-informed philosophers of biology—could... less often In a technical article by Kingsolver and Koehl (1985), often cited by philosophers in support of the claim that the functions of traits can change over time, the authors use the word “function” rarely, and they decline to make any explicit claims about the function of the insect wing Instead they prefer to discuss the evolution of the wing in terms of its “adaptive value.” Moreover, in those... that the faster chasers would succeed in their goal of catching and swallowing the slower clouds The chasing paradigm in meteorol- Meaning and the Means to an Understanding of Ends 9 ogy seemed to work perfectly well as a model for predicting how cloud positions and cloud conformations would change in the skies Philosophers of science found the meteorologists’ success puzzling How was it that they... reside within them So trees would strive to attain the sunniest spots in the forest, rocks would race each other downhill in landslides, and clouds would chase each other across the sky With the development of physical theory, most of the sciences abandoned this animist paradigm Now geologists would no longer talk of rocks racing each other down hills, only of some falling faster than others And botanists... 280) Meaning and the Means to an Understanding of Ends 13 Presumably, when organisms were considered to be artifacts made by God, function language had the same meaning regardless of whether one was talking about the function of a fork or a frog’s leg And function language continues to be used in the same way It is a prima facie strength of the metaphor theory that it explains continuity of use in a simple... to solve problems in the philosophy of mind? How should we explain the appearance of artifact talk in biology and its absence in chemistry and physics? Can the Meaning and the Means to an Understanding of Ends 3 function and design of artifacts themselves be approached from an evolutionary perspective? Most recent work in this area has been concerned with giving an analysis of the concept of biological . 2003 The Mind Incarnate Lawrence A. Shapiro, 2004 Organisms and Artifacts: Design in Nature and Elsewhere Tim Lewens, 2004 Lewens-79044 book October 15, 2003 12:19 Organisms and Artifacts Design in. include the pitfalls of the design- based thinking of adapta- tionism, the possible conflict between selection ORGANISMS AND ARTIFACTS Design in Nature and Elsewhere Tim LEWENS I find the work. of the use of the vocabulary of intelligence and intention in biology that does not itself draw on the ideas of intelli- gent design, which will be of interest in the on- going debate over intelligent