

































Volume 2, Issue 2

Metaphor and Meaning
in the Teleological Language of Biology

Annie Crawford
DOI: 10.33014/issn.2640-5652.2.2.crawford.1

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, neo-Darwinian evolution-
ary theory replaced traditional teleological causality as the
accepted explanatory basis for biology. Yet, despite this
rejection of teleology, biologists continue to resort to the
language of purpose and design in order to define function,
explain physiological processes, and describe behavior. The
legitimacy of such teleological language is currently debated
among biologists and philosophers of science. Many biol-
ogists and educators argue that teleological language can
function as a type of convenient short-hand for describing
function while some argue that such language contradicts
the fundamentally ateleological nature of evolutionary the-
ory. Others, such as Ernst Mayr, have attempted to rede-
fine teleology in such a way as to evade any metaphysical
implications. However, most discussions regarding the le-
gitimacy of teleological language in biology fail to consider
the nature of language itself. Since conceptual language
is intrinsically metaphorical, teleological language can be
dismissed as decorative if and only if it can be replaced
with alternative metaphors without loss of essential mean-
ing. I conclude that, since teleological concepts cannot be
abstracted away from biological explanations without loss
of meaning and explanatory power, life is inherently teleo-
logical. It is the teleological character of life which makes it
a unique phenomenon requiring a unique discipline of study
distinct from physics or chemistry.

“Teleology is like a mistress to the biologist;
he dare not be seen with her in public
but cannot live without her.”

—J. B. S. Haldane

1 Introduction

In the early twentieth century, neo-Darwinian theory re-
placed traditional teleological causality as the accepted ex-
planatory basis for biology. However, despite a public re-
jection of teleology, biologists continue to resort to the lan-
guage of purpose and design in order to identify function,
explain physiological processes, and describe behavior. Bi-
ology textbooks, articles, and papers are indeed filled such
explanations as “A flower produces perfume in order to at-
tract pollinizers,” “The function of the heart is to pump
blood,” or “Felines have developed sharp protractile claws
in order to hunt down prey” (Galli and Meinardi, 2011).
To be meaningful, each of these claims depends upon ref-
erence to some kind of purpose. Even on the cellular and
molecular level, biologists rely liberally on the services of
their intentional handmaiden, describing “insights into the
‘thought’ processes of a cell” and the “perceptual compo-
nents of a cell” which are “making decisions about the ap-
propriate use of resources” (Hyduke and Palsson, 2010).

Words that imply purpose, design, intention, and desire
provide the standard language of biology, and yet both the
legitimacy and the meaning of such teleological language
is the subject of extended debate among both biologists
and philosophers of science. Some scientists and educators
argue that teleological language can function as a type of
convenient short-hand or heuristic device for describing bi-
ological forms while others argue that the employment of
any such language contradicts the fundamentally ateleolog-
ical nature of modern evolutionary theory. Others, such as
Ernst Mayr, have attempted to redefine teleology in such a
way as to evade any metaphysical implications.

In Section 2 of this article, I will briefly consider the histori-
cal context of this debate and outline the sustained modern
attempt to remove teleological concepts from biology. In
Section 3, I will then examine the claim that the teleological
language of biology can be dismissed as superfluous heuris-
tic metaphor and argue in response that this is true if and
only if teleological metaphors can be replaced by alternative
metaphors without loss of essential meaning. In Section 4,
I will consider whether teleological metaphors can be elimi-

https://dx.doi.org/10.33014/issn.2640-5652.2.2.crawford.1


6 Metaphor and Meaning

nated from biological discourse and demonstrate that every
time teleological language is removed from biological expla-
nations, it either jettisons important explanatory elements
or still depends upon unstated teleological concepts that
have been reintroduced through the backdoor. I conclude
in Section 5 that, since teleological concepts cannot be ab-
stracted away from biological explanations without loss of
meaning and explanatory power, life is inherently teleolog-
ical. Therefore, it is disingenuous to continue pretending
that teleology is or can be divorced from biology. Indeed, it
is the teleological character of life which makes it a unique
phenomenon requiring a unique discipline of study distinct
from physics or chemistry.

2 The History of Teleology in the
Biological Sciences

Before directly entering into the contemporary debate over
the role of teleological language in modern biology, it will
prove helpful to understand the historical relationship be-
tween teleology and the study of life. The term ‘teleology’
derives from the Greek word telos which Aristotle defined as
“the end, that for the sake of which a thing is done” (Aristo-
tle, Physics, II.3.). This end purpose for which something
exists is also called its final cause and is one of the four
fundamental causes included in Aristotelian physics. Tele-
ological concepts include everything involved in the pursuit
of an intrinsic, purposeful end: intentionality, purpose, de-
sign, motivation, direction, strategy, aims, goals, problems,
solutions, invention, and agency. While e!cient causality,
which Aristotle defined as “the primary source of the change
or rest,” (Aristotle, Physics, II.3.) explains the source of
movement, final causality explains the purpose for which
the e!cient cause acted. Thus, unlike e!cient causality,
teleological causality implies the ability to imagine and plan
for a future state of a"airs, an ability that can only exist
within a mind or some other kind of non-physical or tran-
scendent reality.

While Aristotelian science included the study of all four
causes—material, e!cient, formal, and final—the founders
of modern science began to exclude final and formal causes
from their methodology. Inquiries into the meaningful pur-
pose of rocks and stars and basic elements seemed to ob-
scure knowledge more than they aided it, for it is di!cult
to ascertain with certitude the purposes for which a Cos-
mic Mind made the moon or the mountains. Neither Bacon
nor Descartes nor Newton denied the existence of God or
his causal activity in creating the world. However, in order
to advance scientific knowledge, the founders of modern sci-
ence endeavored to make a clear distinction between God as

the first cause of the world and the secondary causes he set
to govern the material world. In the Cartesian separation of
res extensa and res cogitans, e!cient causality—proper to
the physical realm—was separated from the intention and
purpose of mind which seemed proper only to the metaphys-
ical realm. Scientists gained reliable knowledge of the ma-
terial world by isolating and determining the natural laws
which function at all times and in all contexts regardless of
intent or purpose. In order for empirical tests to yield such
knowledge, the objects of scientific study must be reduced
to the level of regular and therefore predictable laws and
mechanisms. Teleological causality, however, implying the
personal agency and intentionality characteristic of psychic
realities, is not predictable according to set and inviolable
laws. This exclusive focus on e!cient causality proved in-
credibly successful, allowing technology to develop rapidly
as scientists gained the knowledge necessary to manipulate
the e!cient causes present in material entities toward our
own practical ends.

While the disciplines of physics and chemistry advanced
through the elimination of teleological considerations, bi-
ological realities seemed inseparable from the concepts of
design and purpose. Even contemporary neo-Darwinian
materialists acknowledge that the appearance of design is
what distinguishes the objects of biological study. Richard
Dawkins famously defined biology as “the study of compli-
cated things that give the appearance of having been de-
signed for a purpose” (Dawkins, 1996, pg. 1). Jerry Coyne
opens his book, Why Evolution is True, with the observa-
tion that “if anything is true about nature, it is that plants
and animals seem intricately and almost perfectly designed”
(Coyne, 2009, pg. 1). Philosopher of science Michael Ruse
also a!rms that “the key fact about organisms is that they
are design-like, they exhibit final causes” (Richards and
Ruse, 2016, pg. 35). Until the nineteenth century, biolo-
gists generally accepted the teleological character of life at
face value. Life seemed designed because it was designed;
life appeared purposeful because it was purposeful.

Immanuel Kant also argued that teleology is the defining
characteristic of biology which di"erentiates it from physics
or chemistry. Renowned twentieth century biologist Ernst
Mayr describes Kant as “a strict mechanist with respect
to inanimate nature but a teleologist in the treatment of
the world of life” (Mayr, 1988, pg 59). According to Kant,
design, purpose, and intentionality are the features which
distinguish life from non-life. Moreover, Kant did not be-
lieve that physical laws alone could ever account for the
existence of these teleological qualities. In his Critique of
Judgement Kant boldly contends,

It is quite certain that we can never get a su!cient
knowledge of organized beings and their inner pos-



Volume 2, Issue 2

2. THE HISTORY OF TELEOLOGY IN THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES 7

sibility, much less explain them, according to mere
mechanical principles of nature. So certain is it,
that we may confidently assert that it is absurd
for men to make any such attempt, or to hope
that maybe another Newton will some day arrive
to make intelligible to us even the production of
a blade of grass according to natural laws which
no design has ordered. Such insight we must ab-
solutely deny to mankind.
(Kant, Critique of Judgement, translated by
James Creed Meredith)

Philosopher of science Robert J. Richards explains that
Kant believed life was irreducible to mechanical causes be-
cause for Kant, “the design features of an organism cannot
be explained mechanically, but must be assumed to have
been the product of a plan, an idea” (Richards and Ruse,
2016, pgs. 160–161). Since the many features of an organ-
ism function together in an intricately coordinated manner
to create a purposeful whole, Kant believed that life re-
quired intelligent foresight. According to Kant, the idea for
an integrated, purposeful whole must have existed prior to
the coordinated arrangement of its parts. Yet such an idea,
a plan for the purposeful coordination of integrated parts,
“could only be produced by an intellect. So the naturalist,
in giving an account of the teleological features of organ-
isms, must ultimately assume they have arisen because of a
plan formulated by a powerful intelligence” (Richards and
Ruse, 2016, pg. 161). Since Kant believed that organisms
could not be fully explained by material and e!cient causal-
ity alone, he concluded that biology could not be a science
in the same sense as physics.

However, biologists have su"ered from what Ernst Mayr
famously called “physics envy.” By the mid-eighteenth cen-
tury, the modern scientific method had gained such philo-
sophical, cultural, and technological power that many biol-
ogists endeavored to conform the study of life to the same
methods of inquiry that served physics and chemistry so
well. Yet life continued to stare at her interrogators with a
stubborn, purposeful intentionality and design that seemed
irreducible to mere mechanism. Thus, as Mayr describes,
“the history of the biological sciences from the seventeenth
to the nineteenth centuries [was] characterized by a con-
stant battle between extreme mechanists, who explained
everything purely in terms of movements and forces, and
their opponents, who often went to the opposite extreme of
vitalism” (Mayr, 1974, pg. 91).

Although Kant had condemned biology to a sub-scientific
status, Michael Ruse notes that “Darwin was determined
to show him wrong” (Richards and Ruse, 2016, pg. 34)
and to raise biology to the status of a law-based science

like physics and chemistry. When Darwin published The
Origin of Species, evolutionary theory was not new; his
unique achievement was not to convince the world of univer-
sal common descent but to propose a plausible law-based,
mechanistic explanation for the transmutation of species
which then made an ateleological explanation of life possi-
ble. Darwin’s theory of natural selection acting on random
variations appeared to answer “the problem of final causes”
(Richards and Ruse, 2016, pg. 37). Ruse maintains that “for
Darwin natural selection is not just a cause, but a force
in a kind of Newtonian sense” (Richards and Ruse, 2016,
pg. 44). In the “mechanism” of natural selection acting on
random mutations, the teleological character of life finally
appeared to be demystified and brought under the rule of
physical laws and mechanical processes. While some schol-
ars such as Robert J. Richards and J. Scott Turner argue
that Darwin never intended to strip biology of its vital, tele-
ological character, his endeavor to discover the explanatory
law ultimately led to the mechanistic, reductionist theory
of life we know today. In retrospect, prominent biologist
Francisco Ayala calls Darwin’s “idea that the design of liv-
ing organisms can be accounted for as the result of natural
processes governed by natural laws” a “conceptual revo-
lution” that “has forever changed how mankind perceives
itself and its place in the universe” (Ayala, 2007).

Although evolution itself was widely accepted, Darwin’s
mechanism of natural selection acting on random muta-
tions did not become the prevailing explanatory principle
in evolutionary biology until the Modern Synthesis of the
mid-twentieth century. Although biologists were not yet
generally convinced that natural selection alone could fully
account for the transmutation of species from a common
origin, Darwin had made a mechanistic explanation of life
seem truly possible. The holy grail of biology, a completely
mechanistic and materialistic explanation for the nature
of life, now seemed inevitable. Thus, according to science
writer Jonathan Bartlett, as various theories contended for
dominance, those biologists who continued to su"er acutely
from physics-envy “were careful not to ascribe any purpose-
fulness to organisms out of fear of being labelled as teleol-
ogists” (Bartlett, 2017, pg. 3). In 1958, Colin Pittendrigh
famously quipped that “biologists for a while were prepared
to say a turtle came ashore and laid its eggs, but they re-
fused to say it came ashore to lay its eggs” (Pittendrigh,
1958, pg. 394). The Scientific Revolution had redefined
science as the study of e!cient causality alone and biolo-
gists wanted to be ‘real’ scientists, so “despite the fact that
it is obvious that turtles do indeed come to shore for the
purpose of laying their eggs, biologists were uncomfortable
with stating that plainly” (Bartlett, 2017, pg. 3, emphasis
mine).

However, the development of a viable model for genetic in-



8 Metaphor and Meaning

heritance appeared to vindicate Darwin’s theory of natural
selection. R. A. Fisher, S. G. Wright, and J. B. S. Haldane
devised statistical methods of analysis that reconciled the
mutationism of Mendelian genetics with the gradualism of
Darwinian evolutionism. As J. Scott Turner describes in his
book, Purpose and Desire, adaptation or “fitness could now
be dispassionately and precisely expressed as the tendency
of an allele to replicate” (Turner, 2017, pg. 150). Natural
selection acting on gene variation seemed able to explain
the “appearance” of designed organisms apart from any
real teleological, that is metaphysical, cause. This mod-
ern synthesis of Darwin’s mechanism of natural selection
with modern genetic theory seemed—for the moment—to
solve the problem of final causes by providing a predictable,
measurable, and testable mechanistic explanation for the
development and functionality of life.

After the triumph of neo-Darwinism, teleological phraseol-
ogy seemed either eliminable or able to be explained away,
and biologists became freer with their language. It became
safe for a biologist to say that “a turtle came ashore to
lay her eggs," without worrying about implied metaphysi-
cal content. The purposiveness of organisms was reduced to
a kind of epiphenomenon or secondary characteristic that
could be fully explained by the law-based mechanism of
natural selection acting on random mutations. According
Bartlett, “evolution itself cut any teleological connection
between the organism and any higher organizing principle.
Because evolution proceeded by random or happenstance
changes. . . there was no linkage between the results of
evolution and any purposes within nature” (Bartlett, 2017,
pg. 3). Random variations could account for the arrival of
a new trait while natural selection accounted for the sur-
vival of the trait. This seemed to separate the creation
of functionality from any kind of intentional design. Since
most teleological terms and phrases appeared drained of
metaphysical implications, biologists felt increasingly free
to indulge them. Teleology seemed merely “a leftover relic
that would soon go the way of alchemy” (Bartlett, 2017,
pg. 3).

However, teleology has not died. As the discipline of biology
has advanced, the mysteries of life have kept pace with our
increase in knowledge, and what had for a moment seemed
like a settled debate is far from over. Although teleologi-
cal causality has been excluded by definition from modern
science, biologists continue to not only indulge but actually
depend on teleological language. Satisfying mechanistic ex-
planations continue to evade biologists as life proves to be
far more complex than Bacon or Descartes or Darwin ever
imagined. Advances in biology have compelled scientists to
increasingly reach for the language of purpose and design to
explain the intricately ordered structures and dynamic sys-
tems found within even the simplest organisms. Mechanis-

tic, ateleological models have failed to provide the linguistic
resources necessary to explain life. At the same time, stri-
dent materialists such as Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and
many others have become more insistent on the purposeless,
undesignedness of nature. Thus, as biologists need teleo-
logical language more than ever to explain their new obser-
vations, the ideological pressure to reject such language is
also intensifying. The debate over the role of teleology in
biology has been revived.

3 Teleological language is
Essential to Biology

Ironically, the fact that scientists earnestly debate the legiti-
macy of teleological language in biology lends support to the
claim that teleological language is essential to a meaningful
and coherent explanation of biological phenomena. Most
modern biologists are so strongly committed to method-
ological naturalism that the use of teleological language,
with all its messy metaphysical implications, would have
indeed “gone the way of alchemy” and disappeared from bi-
ological discourse if it were inessential. That the language
of purpose and design persists to annoy so many committed
naturalists is itself evidence that the language of teleology
is important to the study of life.

In this section, I will first consider the common claim that
teleological language functions merely as a decorative or
heuristic metaphor that need not carry meaning into our
theoretical understanding of life. In response to this objec-
tion, I draw from the linguistic philosophy of Owen Barfield,
George Lako", and Mark Johnson to argue against the
possibility of “mere metaphors” in any kind of discourse.
Second, I will outline the arguments of those who claim
that teleological language can and must be eliminated from
biological discourse. Using the work of Ernst Mayr and
Michael Ruse, I will then demonstrate that it is impossi-
ble to remove teleological language or concepts from the
discipline of biology.

3.1 Teleological Language as Mere
Metaphor

Beginning with Darwin, modern biologists commonly argue
that teleological language is merely metaphor; it is a matter
of words and not of concepts. Many science writers and ed-
ucators (especially those who work at a popular or introduc-
tory level) claim that our common sense, everyday language
of intention and design has nothing to do with the real



Volume 2, Issue 2

3. TELEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE IS ESSENTIAL TO BIOLOGY 9

truths of biology. Teleological metaphors can be brushed
aside as a “harmless figure of speech” (Regenmortel, 2007,
pg. 967) derived from our subjective experience as purpose-
ful agents and thus are inessential to the objective nature
of life. From this perspective, teleological language is em-
ployed decoratively for heuristic, educational, or rhetori-
cal purposes; biologists simply use metaphors to translate
between a true scientific understanding of the world and
our colloquial ways of speaking about life. Most who con-
sider the language of purpose and design to be a “mere
metaphor” in biology usually believe that such language
could theoretically be removed from biological descriptions
and explanations without altering their essential meaning.

Charles Darwin himself dismissed his teleological language
in the Origin as mere metaphor. In his essay “Charles
Darwin: Rhetorician of Science,” John Angus Campbell
argues that Darwin believed that his own metaphors func-
tioned simply as non-essential rhetorical devices. According
to Campbell, “Darwin’s public account of his metaphors
creates the impression that his images could be replaced
by literal statements if time were not a factor” (Campbell,
1997, pg. 11). Although Darwin employed anthropomor-
phic images and intentional narratives when describing key
aspects of his theory, he nonetheless “explained away his
originality by insisting that his ideas were the result of
‘facts’ and his metaphors mere expressions of convenience”
(Campbell, 1997, pg. 6, emphasis mine). Campbell claims
that Darwin’s concern for persuasiveness accounts for the
“heavily metaphorical character of his thought” (Campbell,
1997, pg. 10). Darwin understood that in order to make
a compelling case for the theory of natural selection, he
would need to “appeal to common sense” and persuade
“his peers and the wider community by using plain En-
glish words and plain English thoughts” (Campbell, 1997,
pg. 3). Thus, Darwin turned to the same rhetorical tech-
niques of metaphor, personification, and poetic description
which all persuasive writers employ. Indeed, Darwin’s use
of metaphor in the Origin enabled him to skillfully accom-
modate “his message to [both] the professional and lay au-
diences whose support was necessary for its acceptance”
(Campbell, 1997, pg. 3).

However, Darwin’s imagistic language caused confusion and
was, according to Campbell, “a center of controversy from
the very first” (Campbell, 1997, pg. 10). The “conventions
of Baconian induction and quasi-positivistic standards of
proof,” which profoundly influenced nineteenth century un-
derstanding of science, created a tension between Darwin’s
imaginative language and the scientific idea he wished to de-
fend. As Campbell explains, his metaphorical images “lent
his ideas popular appeal, but since they drew attention to
themselves as images, explaining them away posed a dis-
tinct rhetorical challenge” (Campbell, 1997, pg. 10). Dar-

win clearly wanted to demonstrate that his theory was ob-
jectively true according to the quasi-positivist standards of
modern scientific discourse, yet the progression of his argu-
ment frequently depended on imaginative speculation and
metaphorical descriptions. In protest of these imaginative
lines of argument, Darwin’s staunch critic, the anatomist
Richard Owen, complained that “we do not want to know
what Darwin believes & is convinced of, but what he can
prove” (Dear, 2006, pg. 102).

Darwin’s descriptions of the term ‘natural selection’ were
especially problematic. Many of the images Darwin used to
explain natural selection were teleological and therefore im-
plied a goal-directed agency, yet his theory was purported
to be an explanation based on the accepted scientific prin-
ciples of material and e!cient causality, not old, discarded
notions of final causality. In a later edition of the Ori-
gin, Darwin expressed surprise that “several writers have
misapprehended or objected to the term Natural Selec-
tion.” He complained that some readers “have objected
that the term selection implies conscious choice in the an-
imals which become modified; and it has even been urged
that as plants have no volition, natural selection is not ap-
plicable to them!” (Darwin, 1860, pg. 81) Darwin’s readers
were confused, at least in part, because the term selection
itself implies intentional agency, a mind that can choose
one thing rather than another. If the biological realm were
indeed driven by purely e!cient causes, then the language
of choice—the idea that some natural force ‘chooses’ be-
tween the reproductive advantage of either organism A or
organism B—should not be required. Object X would sim-
ply cause Y according to set, automatic laws. For exam-
ple, the moon causes the Earth’s oceans to move via tidal
forces; there is no choice involved nor is the language of
selection required to explain the phenomenon. Peter Dear
maintains that because Darwin’s “term retained the word
‘selection’. . . the old natural-theological sense of intelligent
designfulness still lurked in the background” (Dear, 2006,
pg. 97). The term ‘natural selection’ gave Darwin so much
trouble that “he soon expressed the wish that he had used
some other phrase that avoided the impression of conscious
intent given by the word ‘selection’ ” (Dear, 2006, pg. 111).

However, Darwin defended his metaphorical language by
insisting that the meaning of a concept can be indepen-
dent of the metaphors used to explain it. When criticized
for his use of metaphors, Darwin enigmatically responded
“by pointing out that certain of his metaphors were in fact
metaphors” (Campbell, 1997, pg. 10). In the second edi-
tion of the Origin, Darwin concedes that, “in the literal
sense of the word, no doubt, natural selection is a mis-
nomer” (Darwin, 1860, pg. 81). However, he protests that
such metaphorical language is tolerated in chemistry and
physics: “who ever objected to chemists speaking of the



10 Metaphor and Meaning

elective a!nities of the various elements?—and yet an acid
cannot strictly be said to elect the base with which it will
in preference combine.” Darwin implies the possibility of
detaching a concept from its descriptive metaphor by com-
plaining that “every one knows what is meant and is im-
plied by such metaphorical expressions.” Darwin justifies
the use of metaphors whose meaning must be disregarded
by claiming that they are “almost necessary for brevity.”
While admitting that “it is di!cult to avoid personifying
the word Nature,” Darwin suggests that given enough ef-
fort it is always possible to translate teleological language
into metaphysically neutral statements. For example, he
explains that by “Nature” he means “only the aggregate
action and product of many natural laws, and by laws the
sequence of events as ascertained by us.” Darwin trusts that
“with a little familiarity such superficial objections” about
the implied meaning of his metaphors “will be forgotten”
(Darwin, 1860, pg. 81).

Despite Darwin’s protests, there remains a fundamental dis-
connect between what Darwin claims to say about natural
selection and what he actually said. Campbell contends
that it is “worth considering” why “the very connotations
we are warned not to take seriously were instrumental in
his ability to persuade both his professional peers and the
general public” (Campbell, 1997, pg. 10). Darwin’s images
and metaphors made his theory meaningful and persuasive,
but they also carried implications he wanted his readers to
ignore. Darwin frequently personified natural selection—
describing it as a power that can act, reject, economize,
overmaster, disregard, succeed, seize upon, overcome, and
govern—yet apparently assumed that his readers would dis-
regard the implication of purpose and intention inherent to
his verbs. The most famous passage of the Origin is laden
with teleological meaning; Darwin imagines that “natural
selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the
world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that
which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good;
silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever op-
portunity o"ers, at the improvement of each organic being
in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life”
(Darwin, 1859, pg. 27). It is the sense of intelligent, pur-
poseful activity that gives this passage a compelling and
coherent meaning, yet that is the very meaning we are sup-
posed to ignore. Thus, Campbell concedes that “a certain
disingenuousness was necessary for Darwin to be persua-
sive” (Campbell, 1997, pgs. 8–9).

What Campbell describes as “the distance between Dar-
win’s public quasi-positivistic account of his metaphors and
the actual use he made of figurative language”(Campbell,
1997, pg. 11) is so great that modern scholars continue to
vigorously debate as to whether or not Darwin really in-
tended to remove teleology from his theory of life. Michael

Ruse and Robert J. Richards co-authored a book debating
this very point. While Ruse contends that “it was the whole
purpose of his mechanism to eliminate or at least to render
redundant” (Richards and Ruse, 2016, pg. 38) the world
of teleology, Richards argues that “we have mistakenly as-
sumed that Darwin banished final causes and notions of
progress from biology” (Richards and Ruse, 2016, pg. 84).
Ruse seems to believe that Darwin’s scientific ideas could
be detached from his metaphorical language, for he weakly
asserts that Darwin’s anthropomorphisms were “no more
essential than if we say something like ‘the eye is incredibly
well designed’ ” (Richards and Ruse, 2016, pg. 46). While
then acknowledging that “the eye is design-like in a way
that the moon, for example is not,” Ruse still maintains
that such phraseology does not entail “an Aristotelian vi-
tal force objectively out there in nature making for final
causes” (Richards and Ruse, 2016, pg. 47). Ruse dismisses
the language of design as simply “our way of thinking about
a mechanistic system.” However, Richards objects to Ruse’s
suggestion that Darwin’s language “was ‘merely’ metaphor-
ical” (Richards and Ruse, 2016, pg. 155). Richards states,
“What I believe to be defective about Ruse’s analysis of
Darwin’s theory is the assumption that metaphors are only
decorative and can be safely ignored in the construction of
a scientific theory. I believe they do real work” (Richards
and Ruse, 2016, pg. 158).

This continued confusion over the meaning of natural selec-
tion and the metaphysical implications of Darwin’s theory
demonstrate the problem with simply dismissing teleolog-
ical language as “mere metaphor.” Those scientists who
follow Darwin’s lead in considering their metaphors to be
merely decorative additions that can be abstracted away
from the meaning of the concept seem not to have thought
very deeply about the nature of language. As the follow-
ing discussion of linguistics will explain, Robert J. Richards
rightly perceives that metaphors do real conceptual work,
for the meaning of a concept is actually contained in the
metaphor itself.

3.2 The Meaning is in the Metaphor

Rhetorical metaphors in biology cannot be ignored as
inessential decoration because our conceptual language
draws its meaning from metaphor. Unless a term refers
to a concrete object or activity, its meaning will be cre-
ated and sustained through some kind of metaphorical ref-
erence. In Poetic Diction, philosopher and philologist Owen
Barfield argues that “if we trace the meanings of a great
many words. . . as far back as etymology can take us, we
are at once made to realize that an overwhelming propor-
tion, if not all of them, referred in earlier days to one of



Volume 2, Issue 2

3. TELEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE IS ESSENTIAL TO BIOLOGY 11

these two things—a solid sensible object, or some animal
(probably human) activity” (Barfield, 1973, pgs. 63–64).
All our words either directly refer to a concrete reality,
such as a table or a falling leaf, or else draw their mean-
ing from a metaphorical connection to some physical re-
ality. As an example Barfield o"ers the terms ‘abstract’
and ‘elasticity’ which “are both traceable to verbs mean-
ing ‘draw’ or ‘drag’ ” (Barfield, 1973, pg. 64).1 When we
endeavor to think of what these conceptual terms mean,
we may imagine something stretching like a form drawn in
outline or a well-kneaded dough. Admittedly, as we think
or read a text, we are not normally conscious of our con-
ceptual metaphors, yet our ability to use abstract language
in meaningful ways is not a freedom from metaphor as such
but rather the “power of changing the metaphors in rapid
succession” (Lewis, 2013, pg. 262).

The metaphorical nature of human thought is why
Barfield’s Oxford colleague C.S. Lewis calls reason the or-
gan of truth and the imagination the organ of meaning
(Lewis, 2013, pg. 154). While reason gives order and truth
value to our thoughts, it is the imagination that gives con-
tent to our thought by mediating between our embodied
experience and our thinking. Abstract terms depend upon
metaphors in order to have meaning, and these metaphor-
ical meanings are not arbitrarily invented; they are rooted
in our experience of the objective physical reality.

The concepts to which our terms refer not only draw
their meaning from metaphor, they are also metaphorically
structured. In other words, we not only use metaphori-
cal language to create meaning, we actually organize our
thoughts through physically-based metaphorical models of
the world. In their book Metaphors We Live By, George
Lako" and Mark Johnson argue that “the only reason our
linguistic metaphors make sense is because our concepts are
themselves metaphorically structured” (Lako" and John-
son, 2003, pg. 6). As embodied creatures, both our lan-
guage and our ideas develop through our physical experi-
ence in the world.2 For example, we think of such ideas as

1Of course, by connecting a word to our own lived experience, it is
possible to correctly understand a term even when we do not know the
original metaphorical meaning. For example, I may not know the an-
cient etymological connection between spirit and breath, yet my own
observation of the same reality may lead me to independently con-
nect breath with the word ‘spirit’. Although ignorant of the original
metaphor, I have not attained a meaning that is independent from all
metaphor; I have given the term meaning through my own concrete
experiences of the same reality.

2In the updated afterward to Metaphors We Live By, Lako! and
Johnson maintain, “After twenty years of research by hundreds of in-
vestigators, vast bodies of empirical evidence for conceptual metaphor
have been gathered from studies in a wide range of fields within the
cognitive sciences. We initially had two primary sources of evidence—
polysemy generalizations and inference generalizations. We now have
at least seven other types of evidence derived from various empirical
methods: (1) extensions to poetic and novel cases (Lako! and Turner

happiness and health and power as being ‘up’ because our
bodies literally droop and fall when they are tired, sick, or
dead. Thus, we speak of being “in top shape” or “feeling
up today” or “being on top of the situation” (Lako" and
Johnson, 2003, pg. 15). According to Lako" and Johnson,
we are always conceptualizing “the nonphysical in terms of
the physical” (Lako" and Johnson, 2003, pg. 59). As exam-
ples, consider the way we think of theories and arguments
as buildings that can have a shaky foundation or a strong
framework (Lako" and Johnson, 2003, pg. 46), or how we
conceptualize love as a physical force that can have momen-
tum or cause sparks (Lako" and Johnson, 2003, pg. 49).
Lako" and Johnson o"er dozens of other examples as they
contend that our “conceptual system, in terms of which we
both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in na-
ture” (Lako" and Johnson, 2003, pg. 3).

Scientific concepts and terminology are not exempt from
this dependence on metaphor. Biological language can be
literal when describing concrete, sensible objects, which is
why no one is confused over the meaning of terms such
as ‘feather’ or ‘bullfrog’. However, abstract scientific con-
cepts will depend on metaphor for meaning.3 Barfield ex-
plicitly contends that all “linguistic symbols have a figu-
rative origin; a rule from which high-sounding ‘scientific’
terms like cause, reference, organism, stimulus, etc., are
not miraculously exempt!” (Barfield, 1973, pg. 134, empha-
sis in original) Lako" and Johnson agree that the “so-called
purely intellectual concepts, e.g. concepts in a scientific the-
ory, are often—perhaps always—based on metaphors that
have a physical and/or cultural basis” (Lako" and Johnson,
2003, pgs. 18–19). In his essay, “The Language of Nature,”
Stephen Talbott quotes the mid-twentieth century philoso-
pher Kurt Riezler as “chiding physicists with these words:
“You use the word ‘force’ and, when queried, you define it
by law, field, and vector; but what you really have in mind
is the force you feel in commanding your muscles” (Tal-
bott, 2007, pg. 63, emphasis mine). Riezler reminds scien-
tists that they too must use metaphors in order to under-

1989); (2) psychological research, for example, priming studies (Gibbs
1994; Boroditzky 2000); (3) gesture studies (McNeill 1992); (4) histor-
ical semantic change research (Sweetser 1990); (5) discourse analysis
(Narayanan 1997); (6) sign language analysis (Taub 1997); and (7)
language acquisition (C. Johnson 1999).

The importance of this evidence is that it comes from many di!erent
methodologies and no longer rests exclusively on data from linguistic
forms and inferences. These new sources have produced converging re-
sults concerning the way metaphor lies at the heart of abstract thought
and symbolic expression.” (Lako! and Johnson, 2003, pgs. 248–249,
adapted slightly for spacing).

3Lako! and Johnson argue that “our most fundamental ideas—
not just time, but events, causation, morality, the self, and so on—
were almost entirely structured by elaborate systems of conceptual
metaphor. Even the basic concepts of causation used in the physical
and social sciences are primarily constituted by a system of nearly
two dozen distinct metaphors, each with its own causal logic” (Lako!
and Johnson, 2003, pg. 250).



12 Metaphor and Meaning

stand what their mathematical models mean. The concept
of force becomes what Barfield calls “those verbal ghosts
of the physical sciences” (Barfield, 1973, pg. 140) unless we
give it meaning by connecting the term metaphorically to
our lived experience of the world.

If both our language and our concepts are metaphorically
structured, then there is no such thing as a ‘pure concept’.
Drawing from Barfield’s argument, Lewis concludes that we
can have “either literalness, or else metaphor understood:
one or other of these we must have; the third alternative
is nonsense” (Lewis, 2013, pg. 262). According to Lewis,
we never “really pass from symbol to symbolized, but only
from one set of symbols to another” (Lewis, 2013, pg. 261).
Therefore, contrary to the naïve protests of some scien-
tists, we cannot simply disregard teleological metaphors as
“nothing but linguistic expressions” or “a mere matter of
words” (Lewis, 2013, pg. 245). Our linguistic options are to
either talk about a literal entity (frog) or a metaphorically
rooted concept (force). But if we attempt to make a clean
break between a concept and its metaphor, we are not talk-
ing about anything. As Richards argued in his debate with
Ruse, the meaning of a concept is in the metaphor. Thus,
biologists are fooling themselves when they try to construct
an ateleological concept of life that is consistently expressed
in terms of teleological metaphor. They are speaking non-
sense.

Of course, the meaning of a certain metaphor may indeed be
inessential to a particular concept if the concept can be ad-
equately communicated through an alternative metaphor.
According to Lewis, a concept can possess meaning apart
from a particular metaphor but only “in so far as these
metaphors are optional: that is in so far as we are able to
have the same idea without them” (Lewis, 2013, pg. 258).
For example, Lako" and Johnson discuss the metaphor “ar-
gument is war.” The metaphor of war is inessential to our
concept of argument insofar as we can conceptualize an ar-
gument without reference to war. Indeed, we can conceptu-
alize an argument as more like a building or even a dance.
Argument does not have to be characterized by destruc-
tive conflict; it can be constructive or playful. However,
if we could not fully conceptualize argument without con-
stant recourse to the language of war, we must conclude
that destructive conflict was essential to the nature of ar-
gument. Lewis contends, “In so far as we cannot express
the same idea apart from a given metaphor, so far it will
be the unique expression, and therefore the iron limit of
our thinking” (Lewis, 2013, pg. 255). If we cannot talk
about or conceptualize a particular idea without recourse
to a specific metaphor, it is because the meaning gained by
the metaphor is essential to the reality being explained.

Accordingly, certain metaphors can be helpful to scientists

heuristically without being essential to the concepts being
explained if the same concept can be conceptualized an-
other way without the given metaphor. Heuristic devices
are important tools, and teleological metaphors need not
always have teleological implications. As Darwin rightly
perceived, chemists can talk about “molecules wanting to
have eight electrons in their outer shell” without students
thinking electrons have actual desires. However, this is be-
cause the teleological metaphors of chemistry can be re-
placed by ateleological descriptions without losing any ex-
planatory power. Students can have an accurate idea of
atomic structure without depending on the metaphor of
desire. Chemical bonding patterns are ultimately derived
from mathematical equations that can be conceptualized
without teleological language. We can say, for example,
that “the forces present in an atom are equalized when it
has eight electrons in the outer shell.”

Therefore, living organisms can be understood ateleolog-
ically if and only if it is possible for biological explana-
tions to be conceptualized and communicated without tele-
ological language. Darwin could have justified his artifi-
cial selection metaphor, just as chemists can justify their
heuristic “desire” metaphor, if he could have provide an
adequate conception of natural selection without it. But
he couldn’t. Darwin depended upon the intentional model
of artificial selection in order to explain how natural selec-
tion could provide an exogenic and therefore mechanistic
cause of evolution that avoided the vitalism haunting en-
dogenic explanations. In What Darwin Got Wrong, Jerry
Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini agree that “Darwin
was inadequately impressed by the fact that breeders have
minds. . . whereas, of course, nothing of that sort [sic] is
true in the case of natural selection. It would be startling,
in light of this di"erence, if theories of the one could be re-
liable models for theories of the other” (Fodor and Piatelli-
Palmarini, 2011, pg. xxi). Since the meaning is in the
metaphor, Darwin could not make the teleological analogy
of artificial selection work ateleologically just “by abstract-
ing away the minds away” (Fodor and Piatelli-Palmarini,
2011, pg. 116). While adaptationists continue to see arti-
ficial selection as a “harmless exegetical metaphor,” Fodor
and Piattelli-Palmarini maintain that it is “the putative
analogy to artificial selection that bears the whole weight of
adoptionism” (Fodor and Piatelli-Palmarini, 2011, pg. 99).
Take away the mental causality and the whole ability to
explain anything collapses. Without teleology there is no
way to construct a notion of natural selection “that isn’t
just empty” (Fodor and Piatelli-Palmarini, 2011, pg. 138),
which is why What Darwin Got Wrong opens with Noam
Chomsky’s assessment that “It is perfectly safe to attribute
[evolutionary] development to ‘natural selection’ so long as
we realize that there is no substance to this assertion; it
amounts to no more than a belief that there is some natural-



Volume 2, Issue 2

3. TELEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE IS ESSENTIAL TO BIOLOGY 13

istic explanation for these phenomena” (Fodor and Piatelli-
Palmarini, 2011, opening page, emphasis mine).

If neo-Darwinists are to defend a truly ateleological theory
of life, they will need to show that the language of purpose
and design can be removed and replaced with ateleological
metaphors that give coherent meaning to their explanatory
model. If it proves impossible to eliminate teleological lan-
guage from biological discourse, then we have good reasons
to conclude that teleology—the realm of purpose, intention,
desire, and design—is indeed essential to the nature of life.

3.3 Teleology Expelled: Sacking Biology’s
Mistress

Many scientists have intuited that metaphors do not func-
tion as harmless figures of speech and therefore actively
contend for the removal of teleological metaphors from bi-
ology. Uneasy with the language of purpose and design
within a discipline that endeavors to explain the natural
world through material causality alone, several prominent
scientists argue that such language is misleading, incorrect,
and the primary cause of the public’s failure to accept evo-
lutionary theory.

In his influential essay, “Evolution and Tinkering,” François
Jacob demonstrates the way biologists expect their readers
to ignore the very meaning on which their argument seems
to depend. Jacob describes the causal e!cacy of natu-
ral selection through language littered with intentionality
and goal-directed agency. He describes natural selection
as a force that “integrates mutations” and “orders them
into adaptively coherent patterns” (Jacob, 1977, pg. 1163).
He explains that natural selection “gives direction” and
“progressively produces” (Jacob, 1977, pg. 1163, empha-
sis mine), doing “what it could with the materials at its
disposal” (Jacob, 1977, pg. 1164, emphasis mine). Jacob
explains how natural selection “adjusts” and “alters” and
“arranges” an organism as it “tinkers” to create new life
forms. All these verbs imply intentional, purpose-driven
agency, the very qualities that neo-Darwinianism is sup-
posed to explain away.

Jacob’s presiding metaphor also implies teleology, although
the analogy of the tinkerer was ironically conjured for the
very purpose of denying purpose. Jacob rejects the com-
parison of “the action of natural selection. . . to that of
an engineer” because the latter, “in contrast to what oc-
curs in evolution,. . . works according to a pre-conceived
plan” (Jacob, 1977, pg. 1163, emphasis mine). In other
words, the metaphor of an engineer implies the real exis-
tence of a designing intelligence. Instead, he explains the

action of natural selection by comparing it to the action
of a junk yard tinkerer who works with whatever random
items he might find around him. Although his tinkerer has
“no special project in mind,” Jacob’s analogy still obviously
implies a process driven by intentionality and intelligence.
In conclusion, after liberally employing anthropomorphic
language and teleological metaphor to explain natural se-
lection, Jacob contradicts himself by claiming that “natural
selection has no analogy with any aspect of human behav-
ior” (Jacob, 1977, pg. 1163, emphasis mine). Jacob would
have his readers ignore what his language means in their
attempt to understand what he says.

Such passages are endemic in biological literature, which
makes it no wonder that recent studies show that biology
students as well as the public in general continue to in-
terpret evolutionary processes as inherently goal-oriented.
According to philosopher of science and science educators
L.M. González Galli and E.N. Meinardi, “Comprehensive
research in many di"erent countries has shown that stu-
dents’ misconceptions are as diverse as they are abundant”
(Galli and Meinardi, 2011, pg. 145). For example, Galli
and Meinardi report that “many biology students believe
that: acquired traits are inherited / the onset of the human
species was predetermined / evolution implies progress /
living organisms can change according to their needs” (Galli
and Meinardi, 2011, pg. 146). These ideas imply a goal-
directed view of the world which modern neo-Darwinian
theory flatly denies.

In response to the public misunderstanding, Dr. Marc
Van Regenmortel contends for the rejection of all “design
phraseology,” which he sees as detrimental to progress in bi-
ological research. Specifically, in his paper, “The Rational
Design of Biological Complexity: A Deceptive Metaphor,”
Van Regenmortel argues that “the design metaphor is
shown to originate in human intentionality and in the an-
thropomorphic fallacy of interpreting objects, events, and
the behavior of all living organisms in terms of goals and
purposes” (Regenmortel, 2007, pg. 965). While it is natural
for humans to use teleological language, since purposeful
action is intrinsic to our way of experiencing the world,
Van Regenmortel maintains that the language of design
wrongly projects the human experience of intentionality
and foresight onto what we otherwise know—through neo-
Darwinian theory—to be mindless physical entities. Ac-
cording to Van Regenmortel, “a biological function does not
entail design for that function and functional descriptions
need not be based on psychological notions of design, inten-
tion, and purpose” because functionality develops “blindly
through the increased survival and reproduction of adaptive
random variations” (Regenmortel, 2007, pg. 967). Accord-
ingly, he argues that the language of design ought to be
eliminated from biology because it can perpetuate “the un-



14 Metaphor and Meaning

scientific mental habit of supposing that objects or events
have a purpose” (Regenmortel, 2007, pg. 967).

Evolutionary biologist W. J. Bock of Columbia University
also agrees that “the concept of design is inappropriate in
biology and should be eliminated from all biological ex-
planations” (Bock, 2009, pg. 7). Like Van Regenmortel,
Bock contends that all biological processes are fundamen-
tally random and therefore ateleological and un-designed.
While conceding that natural selection cannot be defined
as strictly accidental, since selection is indeed aimed at sur-
vival and reproduction, Bock maintains that natural selec-
tion acts subsequent to the random changes making evolu-
tionary mechanisms ultimately driven by accidental, atele-
ological causes. Like Van Regenmortel, Bock contends that
design terminology “carries with it too many undesirable
connotations, such as the existence of a creator, and should
not be used in evolutionary theory” (Bock, 2009, pg. 8).
Furthermore, he acknowledges that even when teleological
language is carefully nuanced and contextualized so as to
specify an ateleological source for the appearance of design,
“future workers frequently overlook this restriction and use
the words in a broad, general way” (Bock, 2009, pg. 8).
Precise, technical meanings are easily lost in the more nat-
ural and enticing language of intention, purpose, and de-
sign. For this reason, biologists themselves are tempted to
use teleological language because the technical language is
dull, unrelated to normal human experience, and does “not
readily capture the reader’s attention” (Bock, 2009, pg. 8).
Although Bock humbly admits that his proposed substitute
terms, “non-accidental and non-stochastic. . . are awkward
and not really informative” (Bock, 2009, pgs. 8–9, emphasis
mine), still he contends that it is time to “drop all usages
of design from evolutionary biology” (Bock, 2009, pg. 9).

In an editorial from the BioEssays journal, editor-in-chief
Andrew Moore echoes these concern and argues that using
teleological language is “one of the worst things we can do”
as biologists. He claims that the use of intentional, pur-
poseful language in biology is “far from being ‘excusable
short-hand’ ” but is rather “an important contributor to a
false impression of evolution among many non-scientists”
and thus “a major reason for the lack of public acceptance
of evolution” (Moore, 2011, pg. 237). When biologists speak
of “strategies” or biological “problems” and “solutions,” it
implies some kind of aim or target which ought to be met
or which the processes of evolution are striving to meet.
Moore claims that any goal-oriented language which im-
plies a movement “towards” something or “in order to” is
misleading. Such concepts imply intentionality, purpose,
and desire—the very things which neo-Darwinian theory
purportedly explained away. Therefore, Moore insists that
the anthropomorphic language of purpose must be removed
from the discipline of biology in order to promote an ac-

curate understanding of the evolutionary processes which
ground our modern theory of life.

Arguing that biologists “must find alternatives to anthropo-
morphic terminology,” Moore suggests new ways to describe
biological phenomena without recourse to “motivation, de-
sign, or strategy” (Moore, 2011, pg. 237). Instead of de-
scribing how “nature solved this problem,” a verb which
implies intention, purpose, and forethought, Moore sug-
gests explaining “how evolution resulted in x” (Moore, 2011,
pg. 237, emphasis mine). Rather than “Organism X evolved
to exploit niche Y,” ecologists should state that “Organism
X evolved and occupied niche Y.” Through careful attention
to meaning, Moore maintains that biologists can cultivate a
metaphysically neutral language that will help resolve com-
mon misunderstandings of evolutionary theory as well as
help the discipline of biology progress.

3.4 The Mistress Vindicated

Van Regenmortel, Bock, Moore, and others who call for a
purge of teleological phraseology are right to take the lan-
guage of biological discourse very seriously. However, they
fail to take language seriously enough. These scientists have
only begun to wrestle with the degree to which their lan-
guage carries teleological implications. Upon closer exami-
nation, it becomes clear that even those who stridently op-
pose teleological language still cannot help but to continue
employing it themselves. As the work of Mayr and Ruse
will show, it is impossible to eliminate teleological terms
and concepts from biological discourse.

Despite Moore’s careful attempt to articulate his ideas in
metaphysically neutral verbiage—that is, using language
which in no way relies on an intelligence or a vital essence
as a cause of material realities—most of his suggestions are
still riddled with teleological implications. Moore rightly
observes that the “innocent little word ‘to’ ” implies an op-
erative will which seeks “to” work “in order to” or “with the
purpose of” (Moore, 2011, pg. 237). To remove the purpose-
ful agency implied by the devilish word “to” in the claim,
“to accomplish metabolic process X, enzyme Y evolved a
specificity for Z,” Moore suggests that biochemists should
instead state that “in accomplishing X, Y concomitantly
evolved a specificity for Z” (Moore, 2011, pg. 237). Moore
has rid himself of the pesky “to” but the word “accomplish”
still implies some goal which an agent desired to work to-
ward. Accomplishment is an empty, meaningless term with-
out the implication of a goal that can be attained. Again,
rather than describe Structure X as “perfectly adapted to
perform function Y,” Moore suggests that biologists should
say “Structure X very e!ciently performs Y” (Moore, 2011,



Volume 2, Issue 2

3. TELEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE IS ESSENTIAL TO BIOLOGY 15

pg. 237). Yet terms like “e!ciently” and “performs” still
imply a particular goal. How could we di"erentiate e!-
ciently from ine!ciently unless some targeted process were
used as the standard for our evaluation? And per-forms
means to accomplish through the means of form.

Let us go further than Moore: perhaps “e!cient” could
mean “maximizing power utilization on this e"ect.” This
will not work either, for maximization still implies a target
functionality. Perhaps “accomplish” could be changed to
“enzyme Y eventually transformed to a sustainable equi-
librium under di"erent physiological constraints.” While
“sustainable equilibrium” sounds less purposeful, the “in-
nocent little word ‘to” ” has returned, and in the context of
biology equilibriums are always purposeful. A living organ-
ism is di"erent from a rock because a rock passively yields
to entropy and the other forces of physics and chemistry
while an organism’s activity is directed toward fighting en-
tropy and sustaining its own unique form of equilibrium.
Living things are defined by their active, systematic striv-
ing toward the goal of being themselves. Life is fundamen-
tally formal. This is why, as Turner argues in Purpose and
Desire, the concept of homeostasis is necessary for any co-
herent definition of life and any language that accurately
describes the function of a living organism will carry with
it teleological implications.

Like Moore, Paul Kramer of Duke University also uses tele-
ological language to argue against using teleological lan-
guage. In his editorial in the journal BioScience, Kramer
decries terms such as ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’ as “philosoph-
ically objectionable,” for such language “misleads readers
not trained in science who often mistake the metaphor for
the truth” (Kramer, 1984, pg. 405). However, when at-
tempting to describe the ateleological evolution and nature
of plant life, Kramer still uses such terms as “compromises”
and “regulating,” both of which imply some target toward
which the organism strives. He credits natural selection
with the ability of “screening” random variations in a way
that “minimizes deleterious e"ects and maximizes advanta-
geous e"ects” (Kramer, 1984, pg. 405). Screening for what?
Yet again, none of these terms make any sense unless they
refer to a particular goal or purpose which can provide a
normative foundation for why one variation would be ad-
vantageous while another is deleterious. Unless there is
a goal to achieve, a final cause, one cannot meaningfully
distinguish between a success or a failure. And life is in-
trinsically a matter of success or failure, of life or death.

Teleological language has proved so di!cult to eliminate
that even some neo-Darwinists have come to its defense.4
In the second half of the twentieth century, Ernst Mayr ar-
gued extensively for the necessity of purposive language in

4See, for instance, Galli and Meinardi (2011, pg. 140).

evolutionary biology. He observed that “we find in all or-
ganisms a fitting together of inborn actions or structures so
perfect that one can hardly avoid such terms as ‘design’ or
‘purposefulness’” (Mayr, 1976, pg. 31). Frogs and daisies
demonstrate a purposeful functionality that is absent from
water molecules and limestone rocks. Accordingly, Ruse
insists that “the metaphor of design continues to be ap-
propriate in Darwinian biology in a way that is not true
of physics” (Richards and Ruse, 2016, pg. 47). Mayr also
agrees that design metaphors “express something impor-
tant which is lost when teleological language is eliminated
from such statements” (Mayr, 1988, pg. 38).

Teleological explanations are necessary to the science of bi-
ology not only because organisms are themselves purpose-
ful but also because organisms are historically contingent
beings. Mayr explains that biological “phenomena have a
history and cannot be explained directly through a strictly
causal mechanical explanation, as is possible for processes
in inanimate nature” (Mayr, 1988, pg. 59). There is no his-
torical component to the rules which govern hydrogen and
oxygen bonding; the chemicals simply have the properties
they have in all times and places. The way organisms work,
however, is historically developed. Thus, biological expla-
nations cannot be reduced to merely material and e!cient
causes. When biologists endeavor to explain the laws of life,
they are not only looking for how an organism functions
now, they are also seeking explanations for why an organ-
ism came to function in a particular way. For a chemist
or a physicist, how and why have the same answers. A
chemist can explain why sodium nitrate bonds in a partic-
ular way by referring to the set laws of chemistry which
determine how sodium nitrate bonds. While inanimate ob-
jects act according to set laws that do not vary according
to time or place, animate beings demonstrate contingencies
and variability. Accordingly, Mayr asserts that “it is no ex-
aggeration to claim that most of the greatest advances in
biology were made possible by asking ‘Why?’ questions”
(Mayr, 1988, pg. 55).

Since organisms are historically contingent phenomena, bi-
ological explanations involve a kind of contingency with
which physicists and chemists need not contend.5 At every
level of life, we observe behaviors and processes that are not
fully reducible to set, mathematically definable laws. How

5There is some controversy over the role of contingency in biolog-
ical history. While some biologists such as Stephen Jay Gould main-
tain that life could have evolved in many di!erent ways, or not at all,
others like Simon Conway Morris contend that evolutionary mecha-
nisms are more deterministic and thus certain outcomes are largely
inevitable. Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini assume determinism a pri-
ori but believe biological causality is so complex and multilayered
that a unified predictive theory will be epistemically unavailable and
that biologists will therefore still depend upon apparently contingent,
historical explanations.



16 Metaphor and Meaning

an organism functions does not answer why it functions in
that particular way because—as the diverse abundance of
organisms demonstrates—there is no physical law that dic-
tates how life must work in all places at all times. This is
why evolutionary theory provides the theoretical basis for
all modern biology. Unless species were in fact created by
a direct act of God, why explanations must be answered
by an evolutionary history. If biologists are not to answer
the question “why do fish swim?” with the unscientific an-
swer “because God wanted fish to swim,” they must seek
some evolutionary explanation for why fish developed into
swimmers.

Since historically conditioned, biological functions cannot
be exclusively understood in terms of lawful necessity, tele-
ological concepts must drive biological inquiry if theoretical
questions are to be answered at all.6 As biologists cannot
ask why a fish must swim, they ask why a fish can swim.
In his essay “Teleology: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,”
Michael Ruse explains that “whether or not God stands be-
hind the design-like nature of organisms, inasmuch as one
is doing biology one is simply treating organisms as if they
were designed” (Ruse, 2000, pg. 226). Biologists must use
the concept of functionality to frame their inquiries, for the
functional benefit of a certain adaptation is an essential part
of explaining why that particular feature of the organism
exists. As Stephen Talbott at The New Atlantis explains,
without a telos, a purposeful end in view, biologists can-
not o"er any kind of meaningful explanation “because no
one state of a"airs would be preferable to another or mean
anything di"erent from another” (Talbott, 2017, pg. 65).
Evolutionary explanations depend upon final causes in or-
der to describe how a particular feature contributes to the
benefit of the whole organism. According to Ruse it is “be-
cause, and only because, evolutionary biologists think of
organisms as if they were humanly-made artifacts can they
produce answers to questions about the ways in which these
organisms survive and reproduce; that is to say, can they
produce answers about the ways in which natural selection
functions in the organic world” (Ruse, 2000, pg. 230). Ge-
ologists do not ask for what purpose Mt. Fuji towers above
the Japanese skyline, but in order to study any organ or
plant feature, a biologist must always ask for what pur-
pose the feature exists. Ruse goes so far as to insist that

6Some evolutionary biologists, such as W. J. Bock, disagree with
Mayr and Ruse, arguing instead that the contingent nature of organ-
isms can be explained through random or stochastic processes. How-
ever, as illustrated by the inability to purge biology of teleological
language and concepts, recourse to randomness is really no explana-
tion at all. To explain something by chance is the equivalent of arguing
that it simply happened because it happened. As Barfield remarked,
it is the task of science to explain natural phenomena through its hy-
potheses, but “the concept of chance is precisely what a hypothesis is
devised to save us from. Chance, in fact, = no hypothesis” (Barfield,
1988, pg. 64).

“you cannot do biology without the metaphor” of design
(Richards and Ruse, 2016, pg. 47, emphasis mine).

Therefore, the removal of teleological language from biology
excludes information and concepts that are essential to ac-
curate descriptions and meaningful explanations. Mayr in-
sists that “a crucial portion of the message of a teleological
sentence is invariably lost in the translation” (Mayr, 1988,
pg. 55). For instance, Mayr considers the following sen-
tence: “The Wood Thrush migrates in the fall into warmer
countries in order to escape the inclemency of the weather
and the food shortages of the northern climates” (Mayr,
1974, pg. 106). If biologists replace the words “in order to”
with “and thereby,” they jettison perhaps the most impor-
tant and interesting question of why the Wood Thrush mi-
grates. Mayr claims that “the majority of modern philoso-
phers are fully aware of this and agree that ‘cleaned-up’
sentences are not equivalent to the teleological sentences
from which they were derived” (Mayr, 1974, pg. 107). The
original statement implies a “goal-directed migratory ac-
tivity” (Mayr, 1974, pg. 106) but the purified sentence “is
greatly impoverished” in “information content” and “casual
strength” (Mayr, 1974, pg. 107). By removing any sense of
purpose or intention, the ateleological sentence excludes the
possibility of a meaningful relationship between the organ-
ism, its behaviors, and its environment. The action of the
Wood Thrush and the resulting state of a"airs appear to be
happenstance, and the appearance of disconnection is not
likely to stimulate fruitful investigation. While many bi-
ologists have “maligned” teleological language “as stultify-
ing and obscurantist,” Mayr maintains that “this is simply
not true” since “the nonteleological translation is invari-
ably a meaningless platitude, while it is the [teleological]
statement which leads to biologically interesting inquiries”
(Mayr, 1974, pg. 107).

Ruse also analyzes “nonteleological translations” and claims
that, not only are these statements lacking in important
content, they still depend indirectly upon teleological con-
cepts. The concept of purposeful design is used to con-
struct all biological explanations even when scientists man-
age to cleanse their explanations of explicitly teleological
language post hoc. Scientists might be able to construct a
non-teleological description of an organism’s features but
only because one already knows the function. Consider the
Wood Thrush example given by Mayr above: A biologist
can only join the clause about southern migration and the
clause about escaping food shortages because he first as-
sumed that the change in habitat had a purpose. Only by
assuming a purpose could a biologist make inquiries into
the function of the bird’s behavior. Without this teleolog-
ical assumption, no biological hypothesis could be formed.
Therefore, Ruse asserts that even if “one’s finished formal
theory makes no direct reference to the metaphor of design,



Volume 2, Issue 2

3. TELEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE IS ESSENTIAL TO BIOLOGY 17

and thus eliminates the teleology. . . in order to achieve the
end results one has had to use the metaphor with all of
the teleological implications that it carries” (Ruse, 2000,
pg. 230).

To illustrate his point, Ruse considers a typical evolution-
ary explanation for the development of fins on Stegosauri
dinosaurs. To construct a nonteleological explanation,

One would say that those Stegosauri with more
and more diamond-like-shaped fins were those
that survived and reproduced, and those which
did not have such fins did not. One could even go
on to say precisely why it was that the success-
ful Stegosauri survived and reproduced: the more
diamond-like fins acted as e!cient heat transfers,
whereas those less diamond shaped acted as less
e!cient heat transfers. There was a consequent
di"erential reproduction of the respective posses-
sors.
(Ruse, 2000, pg. 228)

However, Ruse asks “how did one know in the first place
that the fins would or would not be e!cient for heat trans-
ference? The answer of course is because one has been rely-
ing on the metaphor of design!” (Ruse, 2000, pgs.228–229)
Only by understanding the fin’s function in the organism
can one then in retrospect “ferret out in which ways they
work” (Ruse, 2000, pg. 229) and construct an explanation
that employs the past-tense language of e!cient causality.
After using the metaphor of design to understand the func-
tional features of an organism, a scientist might find a way
to then “drop the metaphor-like talk,” but Ruse maintains
that really “one is not doing without it: one is simply not
acknowledging it” (Ruse, 2000, pg. 229). Thus, according to
Ruse, this attempt to eliminate teleological language from
biology “is all a little bit bogus. One is using a sleight of
hand. First, one uses the metaphor with all of its teleologi-
cal implications. Then second, when once one has achieved
the ends one desires, one drops the metaphor like an un-
wanted spouse and one pretends that one never had any-
thing to do with it at all” (Ruse, 2000, pg. 229). If teleo-
logical metaphors are necessary to the process of answering
biological questions, then teleology is an essential part of
the answer itself. It is deceptive to re-word our answers so
as to deny the role teleology played in providing them.

Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini take a di"erent approach to
the problem of teleological concepts in biology (what they
call the “selection-for” problem) but make the same essen-
tial point as Mayr and Ruse: a coherent, unified theory of
life requires teleological causality. Based on the problem
of “free-riders” developed by Gould and Lewontin, Fodor

and Piattelli-Palmarini argue that without recourse to men-
tally based final causes, natural selection cannot distinguish
between coextensive traits when selecting for fitness and,
therefore, natural selection cannot function as the explana-
tory basis for evolutionary theory.

Because organisms are complex functional wholes, pheno-
typic traits are never presented to natural selection in iso-
lation. Long necks are coextensive with long esophagi and
the ability to vocalize is usually coextensive with the ability
to swallow. As Gould and Lewontin demonstrate, some of
these traits are “free-riders” that were selected along with
the adaptive trait. Sometimes traits increase and persist in
a population not because they are advantageous but just
because they were there. How can natural selection explain
the di"erence between a free-rider and an adaptive trait?

Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini argue at length that free-
riders pose an insurmountable problem for neo-Darwinism;
natural selection cannot distinguish free-riders from traits
that are “selected-for” because natural selection cannot pro-
vide grounds for distinguishing between counterfactuals.
Since organisms are historically contingent beings, an ex-
planatory theory of evolution must be able to decide be-
tween the statements “if X hadn’t been selected, then Y
would not have been selected either” and “if Y hadn’t been
selected, then X would not have been selected either.” But
natural selection, like all mechanistic causes, cannot take
past or future events into account, which means it cannot
provide grounds for deciding among these kinds of counter-
factuals. As Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini explain, “coun-
terfactual events cannot exert selection pressures: merely
possible predators do not a"ect the evolution of a popu-
lation (although, actual predators are quite likely to do
so)” (Fodor and Piatelli-Palmarini, 2011, pg. 113, emphasis
mine). Only a mind can imagine future scenarios and thus
distinguish between counterfactuals. Appeal to the mental
causes in the breeder can distinguish between the selection-
for thicker wool and the free-rider of curly wool that may
accompany it, but if natural selection is to provide an atele-
ological theory of life, it cannot likewise appeal to a mind
in order to solve the “selection-for” problem presented by
the coextensive traits of organisms. Because it cannot ac-
count for counterfactuals, “the theory of natural selection
cannot predict/explain what traits the creatures in a popu-
lation are selected for” (Fodor and Piatelli-Palmarini, 2011,
pg. 110).

According to Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini, the inability
to distinguish counterfactuals is why attempts to remove
teleology result in tautological explanations while purpose,
desire, and intentionality are brought in the back door to
provide narrative accounts of evolutionary changes. For ex-
ample, hearts pump blood but they also make noise. Which



18 Metaphor and Meaning

trait is selected for fitness and which trait is a free-rider?
We instinctively choose the ability to pump blood as the
trait “selected-for,” but that is because, as Ruse argued, we
assume a purpose in order to explain “selection-for.” How-
ever, if we remove the assumption of intentionality, adap-
tationist explanations become question begging. If we ask
why the heart pumps blood, the explanation cannot be that
natural selection selected this trait for its fitness. The fit-
ness of the heart was already at work before natural selec-
tion could select it. Thus, it is the teleological concepts,
the clear purpose of the heart and it’s functional design,
that actually provide the explanation for the trait’s fitness;
biologists only clandestinely credit the fitness to natural
selection post hoc. Remove the teleology, and all that re-
mains is the same tautology that dogs all adaptationism
(Fodor and Piatelli-Palmarini, 2011, pgs 131 and 145). Be-
ing “selected-for” an adaptation cannot be the cause of the
adaptation that is being selected just as being a bachelor
cannot be the cause of being unmarried. Theoretical expla-
nations are empty if they prove merely definitional.

Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini conclude that a theory which
cannot explain the phenomena studied is a dead, empty
theory. Darwinism has not dissolved traditional teleol-
ogy; it is “intentionality that is the universal acid dis-
solving the neo-Darwinian modern synthesis” (Fodor and
Piatelli-Palmarini, 2011, pg. 132). However, because they
are a priori unwilling to return to a teleological explana-
tion, Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini opt to conclude that
there “can be no general theory of evolution” (Fodor and
Piatelli-Palmarini, 2011, pg. xxii).

Haldane was correct; biologists cannot live without their
ill-reputed mistress. The language of purpose and design
cannot be simply dismissed as harmless figures of speech
nor can it be eliminated without a significant loss of ex-
planatory power. Teleological language is essential to a
meaningful and coherent explanation of biological phenom-
ena and it is impossible to conduct meaningful biological
inquiry and discourse without it. To describe purposeful
agents, a language of purpose will be required.

Despite over a century of e"ort, Talbott contends that “it
is no more possible than it was two hundred years ago to
construct a single paragraph of proper biological descrip-
tion that does not draw on meaningful language of living
agency considered improper in chemistry or physics” (Tal-
bott, 2010b, pg. 47). And because language is rooted ei-
ther directly or metaphorically in our concrete experience
of the world, language itself leads us toward truthful insight
into nature.7 Remarking on Ruse’s argument in “Teleology:

7The view of language argued in Section 3 of the present essay
supports a moderate form of scientific realism, that is the idea that
science can give us real knowledge of the objective world. Even if, as

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” Galli and Meinardi con-
cede that “as long as it is not possible to explain adaptation
phenomena without resorting to the metaphor of design
(evidently teleological), then both the phenomenon to be
explained and the explanations themselves are, in a relevant
sense, teleological” (Galli and Meinardi, 2011, pg. 150).

It now remains to determine the full meaning of this tele-
ological language. Can ‘teleological’ be conceptualized in
such a way as to remove the metaphysical implications
which seem so antithetical to modern biological theory? Or
does re-admitting the language of purpose and design pose
an insurmountable problem to naturalistic explanations of
life?

4 If teleological language is
essential to biology, then life
must be teleological

In this section, I will argue that since teleological language
is essential to a meaningful and coherent explanation of
biological phenomena, life must be inherently teleological.
Biologists and philosophers of science who accept the need
for teleological language object to this conclusion in two
primary ways, either by attempting to redefine teleology
in such a way as to remove its metaphysical implications
or by arguing that the cumulative evidence in support of
universal common descent is su!cient to prove that life is
reducible to material and e!cient causality alone. First, I
will consider how attempts to redefine teleology inevitably
fail to shake the implication of an originating mind. Sec-
ondly, I will briefly consider the arguments for common
descent and show how the claim that life cannot be teleo-
logical since it originated from a common ancestor simply
assumes the conclusion it presumes to prove. These mod-
ern attempts to deny the teleological nature of life in the
classical, metaphysical sense are not based on the study
of life itself but from a priori commitments to materialist
philosophy.

While a growing number of biologists and philosophers of
science agree that the language of design is essential for a
coherent explanation of life, many still argue that such lan-
guage can be redefined or “naturalized” in order to elim-

anti-realists argue, our scientific explanations are based on metaphor-
ical models vulnerable to underdetermination, yet those metaphorical
models are not arbitrary but grounded in reality because language is
itself metaphorically grounded in our embodied experience of the real
world. While science may not give us perfectly objective knowledge of
the mind-independent world, yet neither is scientific knowledge purely
subjective.



Volume 2, Issue 2

4. IF TELEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE IS ESSENTIAL TO BIOLOGY, THEN LIFE MUST BE TELEOLOGICAL 19

inate the metaphysical implications of traditional teleol-
ogy. Since our conceptual language is metaphorical in na-
ture, biologists need some ateleological metaphor that can
ground and structure the meaning of an inanimate, un-
intelligent creative power in order to reject the metaphysi-
cal intelligence and intentionality integral to the traditional
concept of teleology. If the anthropomorphic metaphor of
mind-based design can be replaced by a di"erent metaphor-
ical understanding of purposeful function, then perhaps we
can coherently conceive of a mindless teleology that need
not threaten methodological naturalism. This is precisely
the proposal which Ernst Mayr made in the mid-twentieth
century. Mayr argued that teleology can be cleansed of
its metaphysical implications by uprooting the anthropo-
morphic metaphor of mind and replanting teleology in the
metaphor of the cybernetic program.

In 1958, Colin Pittendrigh introduced the term ‘teleon-
omy’ as a metaphysically neutral replacement for teleol-
ogy. By changing the su!x from –ology to –onomy, Pit-
tendrigh endeavored to distinguish between goal-oriented
processes that imply a metaphysical causality and goal-
oriented processes that emerge as a secondary characteristic
of e!ciently caused material organisms. At a time when
biologists were afraid to say “a turtle came ashore to lay
its eggs” (Pittendrigh, 1958, pg. 394), Pittendrigh believed
that “the biologists’ long-standing confusion would be more
fully removed if all end-directed systems were described by
some other term; like ‘teleonomic’ ” (Pittendrigh, 1958,
pg. 394). A di"erent term would “emphasize that the recog-
nition and description of end-directedness does not carry a
commitment to Aristotelian teleology as an e!cient causal
principle” (Pittendrigh, 1958, pg. 394). Perhaps by using
a di"erent term, biologists would remember that purpose
and intention are not ontological qualities inherent in the
turtle’s nature but only observed functional attributes that
emerge from the complex material laws that truly govern
biological phenomena.

Mayr adopted Pittendrigh’s term and used concepts from
the new field of cybernetics to explain how teleonomic ex-
planations could be distinguished from teleological explana-
tions and thereby freed from any metaphysical implications.
Mayr conceived of DNA as the biological code that formed
the program of life. According to Mayr, “a program is (1)
something material, and (2) it exists prior to the initiation
of the teleonomic process” (Mayr, 1974, pg. 101). First, a
program must be materialized somehow if it is to be any
kind of physical cause, which a program for life certainly
must be. Abstractions, such as the number 5, cannot exert
a causal force in the material world, but embodied data such
as a braille pattern or an encoded microchip can. Second,
the program must exist prior to its function. We can’t read
a book that hasn’t been written and we can’t use software

that hasn’t first been coded.

The existence of a program prior to its function, or what
Mayr terms its “teleonomic process,” is essential to the defi-
nition of teleonomy. Mayr thus defines ‘purpose’ and ‘func-
tion’ as processes which physically result after the code ex-
ists and exerts its e"ect on the material world. If a par-
ticular code originates from purely materialistic processes,
then no metaphysical reality need be implied by the sec-
ondary ‘emergent’ function. For Mayr, the functional e"ect
which a program produces is totally independent from the
way the program was formed. This crucial gap between
life’s creation and life’s purpose is how Mayr proposes to
prevent any metaphysical realities from intruding into the
realm of biology.

Because the randomly created program of life, DNA, always
exists prior to its emergent function—that is, the genotype
is created before any kind of phenotype is then tested by
natural selection—the final causality attached to traditional
teleology is removed from the concept of teleonomy. Ac-
cording to twentieth century genetics, meaningless, chance
mutations in the DNA create the program code independent
of any purposeful functioning. Sometimes these di"erent se-
quences have an emergent e"ect that is beneficial to the or-
ganism. When this randomly occurs, natural selection then
preserves the trait within the species because of its func-
tional advantage. As Mayr explains, the action of “natural
selection is strictly an a posteriori process which rewards
current success but never sets up future goals” (Mayr, 1974,
pg. 96). The functional features of organisms are preserved
teleonomically but not created teleologically. In this way,
mechanical processes appear to create functionality with-
out any intentionality. There is no teleological purpose in
the creation of life’s program—which is made by random,
purposeless variations—but there is a teleonomic purpose
in the program’s preservation.

Purpose in this teleonomic sense does not refer to an onto-
logical purpose but only to an emergent functionality. Mayr
insists that “teleonomic explanations are strictly causal and
mechanistic,” and thus, “the acceptance of a teleonomic ex-
planation. . . is in no way in conflict with the laws of physics
and chemistry. It is neither in opposition to a causal inter-
pretation, nor does it imply an acceptance of supernatural
forces in any way whatsoever” (Mayr, 1974, pg. 92). The
di"erence between a teleonomic and teleological purpose is
the di"erence between an apparent telos—a function which
emerged as the consequence of unrelated e!cient causes—
and a causally active, ontological purpose rooted in the es-
sential nature of the being. As Bartlett phrases it, Mayr’s
principal claim is that “organisms do have purposes, but
they didn’t arrive at their purposes through a purpose”
(Bartlett, 2017, pg. 4).



20 Metaphor and Meaning

Mayr’s teleonomic model appeared to have resolved the ten-
sion between the teleological nature of life and its assumed
material origins by explaining how “natural selection itself
turns accident into design” (Mayr, 1976, pg. 43). François
Jacob claimed that “the concept of program has made an
honest woman of teleology” (Jacob, 1973, pg. 9). The pro-
gram metaphor seemed to give meaning and coherence to
the new concept of teleonomy as it reduced life to a mech-
anistic reality ultimately explainable through material and
e!cient causality alone. J. Scott Turner describes this al-
luring model succinctly: “Organism as algorithm. Life is
code. Evolution is modification of code. We are all beta ver-
sions of something, with infinite updates coming” (Turner,
2017, pg. 211).

However, Mayr’s tidy and clever solution has two fatal prob-
lems: first, the program metaphor still carries metaphysical
implications, and second, advances in the last two decades
of biology have shown that life does not actually function
like a computer program after all.

The program metaphor fails to naturalize teleonomic ex-
planations because programs still imply a mind as the orig-
inating cause. As philosopher of science Stephen Meyer
explains:

A computer user who traces the information on
a screen back to its source invariably comes to
a mind—that of a software engineer or program-
mer. The information in a book or inscriptions
ultimately derives from a writer or scribe—from
a mental, rather than a strictly material, cause.
Our experience-based knowledge of information-
flow confirms that systems with large amounts
of specified complexity (especially codes and lan-
guages) invariably originate from an intelligent
source from a mind or personal agent.
(Meyer, 2004)

When attempting to distinguish the new meaning of teleon-
omy from traditional teleology, Mayr still exclusively de-
pends on design metaphors. He refers to blueprints, in-
structions, loaded dice, ‘fixed’ number wheels, computer
programs, and a clock—all of which are intentionally cre-
ated by intelligent agents. While many biologists hoped
that the new mechanical and information metaphors de-
rived from computer technology would help set the study
of life on firmly materialistic ground, in truth it has done
just the opposite. All known sources of coded information
to which we may meaningfully compare DNA have been
created by minds.

Furthermore, programs do not actually exist prior to func-

tion as Mayr argued; in truth, a program’s function always
first exists in the mind of the programmer. As Turner points
out, “Anyone who has done any coding appreciates that
an algorithm must do something, and that something usu-
ally begins as a desire somewhere in the mind of a coder”
(Turner, 2017, pg. 211). This is why teleological language
always carries metaphysical implications; the functional co-
herence of a purposeful object requires foresight. Those fu-
ture outcomes can only operate in the present through the
imaginative activity of an intelligent mind. A computer
programmer has an idea for a design, a future outcome,
which he uses to guide the process of programming. If bi-
ological phenomena display evidence of design, this implies
the existence of some kind of transcendent mind or intelli-
gent world soul capable of foresight on a cosmic scale. Only
through the existence of a metaphysical reality—something
that can transcend the temporal march of the e!cient
causes that govern physical reality—can teleological causal-
ity actually exist.

In their paper, “Why Machine-Information Metaphors are
Bad for Science and Science Education,” Massimo Pigliucci
and Maarten Boudry recognize that program metaphors,
which they term “machine-information metaphors” (Pigli-
ucci and Boudry, 2011, pg. 460), are inherently teleo-
logical and consequently imply an intelligent cause. As
committed materialists, Pigliucci and Boudry therefore ar-
gue stridently for the elimination of these misleading pro-
gram metaphors. They claim that machine-information
metaphors have not only “been grist to the mill of ID cre-
ationism” (Pigliucci and Boudry, 2011, pg. 469) but have
also been “deleterious for science education” and hindered
biological research by misdirecting “what sort of research
programs biologists ought to carry out and how” (Pigliucci
and Boudry, 2011, pg. 466). Accordingly, these authors
argue that it is “time to dispense with them altogether”
(Pigliucci and Boudry, 2011, pg. 469).

Ironically citing the work of Lako" and Johnson, Pigliucci
and Boudry admit that “metaphorical thinking seems to
be a biologically entrenched functional mode of our brains”
(Pigliucci and Boudry, 2011, pg. 469). Accordingly, they
reason, as I have done, that biologists will need to use al-
ternative metaphors to counter the metaphysical implica-
tions of machine-information metaphors. However, Pigli-
ucci and Boudry confess that “we certainly have not found
one that we would recommend as a replacement” (Pigli-
ucci and Boudry, 2011, pg. 468). They tentatively o"er
only a single alternative conceptual metaphor: that DNA
sequences can be likened to a recipe for a cake. This bizarre
analogy (which has actually been used in a high school bi-
ology textbook, Mader and Windelspecht (2015, pg. 258))
still implies both a set of informative instructions for a par-
ticularly designed cake as well as an intelligent source for



Volume 2, Issue 2

4. IF TELEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE IS ESSENTIAL TO BIOLOGY, THEN LIFE MUST BE TELEOLOGICAL 21

both the recipe and the ‘cook’ who is able to interpret
and act upon the instructions for the purpose of making
something to eat. While avoiding the limits of mechanistic
thinking, this metaphor actually increases the teleological
implications for life as it requires more intelligent involve-
ment than a machine, which can, once created, function
mindlessly.

As with all e"orts to eliminate teleological language, the
pressure to find an ateleological model for biology has been
great, yet still there are no feasible alternatives available.
All the metaphors that help to frame our understanding of
the way organisms actually work carry teleological implica-
tions. Analogies to watches, machines, factories, languages,
computer code, blueprints, cake recipes, and mousetraps—
all of these examples depend on an intelligent source as a
cause. We have no direct, concrete experience with a pur-
poseful entity arising through an unintelligent process. Ev-
ery known cause of functional design is an intelligent cause.
The world simply a"ords no ateleological design from which
biologists can draw to give meaning to a metaphysically
neutral concept of teleonomy.

Furthermore, not only do program metaphors fail to inoc-
ulate biology from design arguments, but recent develop-
ments have shown that life does not actually function like
a program. While the cybernetic models on which Mayr
based his teleonomic argument have o"ered important in-
sight into the physiological dynamics of an organism, they
do not accurately predict all organism behavior. Although
the genetic revolution appeared to promise the tidy reduc-
tion of life to a single DNA code, the subsequent epigenetic
revolution has quickly dispelled the myth of life as mere
program. Cellular development also depends on epigenetic
processes unrelated to DNA transcription and translation.
These include glycosylation, the transfer of spatial infor-
mation stored in the cellular membranes, bioelectric codes,
three-dimensional folding of proteins, and others which bi-
ologists are only beginning to discover. None of these cel-
lular processes can be directly coded for by DNA sequences
which themselves only code for proteins. Rather than the
DNA serving as the dictating, cybernetic ‘master controller’
of the cell, it has become clear that DNA simply serves as
the stored blueprints for protein construction which the cell
references as needed according to the discernment of the or-
ganism as a whole.8

There may be one other objection that can be raised against
my second claim that if teleological language is essential to
a coherent explanation of biological phenomena, then life

8It is beyond the scope of the present article to discuss the inad-
equacies of the program metaphor factors in detail. For more infor-
mation, see part one of Fodor and Piatelli-Palmarini (2011), Talbott
(2010a), or Wells (2017).

must be inherently teleological. Although I have not ex-
plicitly encountered such an argument, one might claim
that, based on the strength of evidence for common an-
cestry, we can simply assert that teleology can and ought
to be redefined as teleonomic even in the absence of any
ateleological metaphor that can conceptually structure this
new understanding. Based on the standard cumulative ar-
gument for common ancestry which draws from multiple
non-Darwinian lines of evidence such as biogeography, fos-
sils, homology, embryology, and dysteleology9 one might ar-
gue that an alternative metaphor is not necessary because
life itself gives us a direct experience of design originating
from a mindless, purposeless source. Although Darwinian
mechanisms may no longer be adequate to explain exactly
how design can emerge from ateleological causes, based on
evidence for common descent we know that they did.

However, this objection only begs the real question at hand:
are living processes teleological? Evidence that organisms
evolved from a common ancestor does not itself prove that
such a process was ateleological. As discussed above, some
philosophers and scientists such as Robert J. Richards ac-
cept common ancestry yet still argue that Darwin conceived
of natural selection and evolution as teleological processes.
Some biologists such as J. Scott Turner argue that evolu-
tionary processes are better accounted for by teleological
explanations. Arguments for common ancestry do not ad-
judicate between a teleological or ateleological explanations
of those evolutionary processes. Furthermore, any direct
observation we have of evolution at work is not an observa-
tion of de novo design creation, but simply the adaptation
of pre-existing design, which can be interpreted in and of
itself as a feature of an organism’s functional design, i.e.

9A recent paper in Evolution: Education and Outreach, “Tele-
ology’s Long Shadow” by A. Werth and D. Allchin, comes close to
making this argument. Like Pigliucci and Boudry, Werth and Allchin
acknowledge that teleology is endemic to biological discourse and that
“teleology is deeply rooted in human cognition,” but still Werth and
Allchin argue that “historical contingency (or “chance” or “accident”)
natural selection as stepwise and local, changing environments, evolu-
tionary “reversals,” vestigial structures, pleiotropy, genetic drift, evo-
lutionary branching, and the role of teleonomic explanations” all show
that teleological causality is imposed on biological phenomenon by hu-
man understanding rather than a reality observed in organisms (Werth
and Allchin, 2020, pg. 2). Most of these points have been addressed
elsewhere in this paper, but I will here add a word regarding dystele-
ology.

Dysteleological arguments use examples of supposed ‘poor design’,
such as the Pandas stumpy thumb or the indirect route of the recur-
rent laryngeal nerve in humans, to argue that organisms could not be
purposefully designed because any good cosmic designer would have
created only perfect designs. Such arguments at most rule out the
existence of a mind that only allows the creation or evolution of opti-
mal design, but most importantly, such arguments can actually only
be made within the context of a teleological world. The idea of sub-
optimal design is only meaningful with a world of real design. Dys-
teleolgical concepts are parasitical on design concepts and do nothing
to actually explain away the reality of design.



22 Metaphor and Meaning

the organism was designed to be adaptable.

As teleological language has proven essential to a coherent
explanation of biological phenomena, there seems no way to
deny that life must be inherently teleological. Arguments
against this conclusion are based not on scientific evidence
but on materialist assumptions that are brought to, not
derived from, the study of life. The endeavor to remove
teleological causality from biology began and remains an a
priori philosophical commitment.

5 Conclusion: Life All the Way
Down

Teleological language and concepts are essential to the
study of life, and biologists compromise the integrity of
their science when they deny the meaning of the very lan-
guage on which their discipline depends. Life appears pur-
posefully designed because it is purposefully designed. The
endeavor to redefine or remove teleology from the study of
life is an attempt to deny what an organism essentially is:
an animated, integrated being full of will and intention and
purpose. Stephen Talbott in The New Atlantis contends
that “the misrepresentation of this organic coherence in fa-
vor of supposed controlling mechanisms is not an innocent
inattention to language; it is a fundamental misrepresen-
tation of reality at the central point where we are chal-
lenged to understand the character of living things” (Tal-
bott, 2010b, pg. 29). Whether it is the DNA that ‘regulates’
or ‘controls’ the functions of the cell or whether epigenetic
factors ‘inform’ and ‘regulate’ the DNA, what all these cel-
lular descriptions imply is not merely the ‘appearance’ but
the reality of design and purpose and intent. Something be-
yond mere physical mechanisms, something metaphysical is
at work at every level in the origin, development, and func-
tioning of living organisms. This ‘something’ is what di"er-
entiates a living organism from a dead one. Both a living
and a dead organism have the same component parts, but
the dead organism is the one fully yielded to the inanimate
processes of physics and chemistry, not the living one.10

What makes a creature alive is its teleological process: a

10Considering the di!erence between a living dog and a dead one,
Talbott writes, “Virtually the same collection of molecules exists in
the canine cells during the moments immediately before and after
death. But after the fateful transition no one will any longer think of
genes as being regulated, nor will anyone refer to normal or proper
chromosome functioning. No molecules will be said to guide other
molecules to specific targets, and no molecules will be carrying sig-
nals, which is just as well because there will be no structures rec-
ognizing signals. Code, information, and communication, in their
biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary”
(Talbott, 2010b, pg. 25, emphasis in original).

material form animated by the striving of a unique being
to become and remain itself.

Biology resists transformation into a “hard” law-based
mechanistic science because it studies the realm of life
wherein the laws of physics and chemistry mingle with the
psychic realities of will and mind. It is the purposeful de-
sires of the organism as a whole that guide and direct its
interaction with the material world of e!cient causality.
We observe physics and chemistry together with cognitive
intention in living organisms. Where living beings exist, no
physical law can ever adequately predict and account for
their real ability to exercise willful activity in the world.

The more our biological understanding grows, the more we
are confronted with the teleological nature of life. Mod-
ern biologists have peeled back the skin of life, expecting
to find robotic, mechanistic realities at work beneath the
living exterior. However, as Talbott explains, biologists
have “plunged headlong toward the micro and molecular
in their drive to reduce the living to the inanimate” only
to “find unapologetic life staring back at them from ev-
ery chromatogram, every electron micrograph, every gene
expression profile. Things do not become simpler, less or-
ganic, less animate” (Talbott, 2010a, pg. 24). It is “life
all the way down” (Turner, 2017, pg. 181) to the molecu-
lar level where biologists still perceive the dynamic, inten-
tional, responsive activity of a cognitive being animated by
purposeful striving to become and be its unique self.

References

Ayala, F J (2007). “Darwin’s Greatest Discovery: Design
Without Designer”. In: Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences 104, pp. 8567–8573. doi: 10 .
1073/pnas.0701072104.

Barfield, O (1973). Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning.
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Barfield, O (1988). Saving the Appearances. 2nd edition.
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Bartlett, J (2017). “Evolutionary Teleonomy as a Unify-
ing Principle for Extended Evolutionary Synthesis”. In:
BIO-Complexity 2017.2, pp. 1–7. doi: 10.5048/BIO-
C.2017.2.

Bock, W J (2009). “Design: An Inappropriate Concept in
Evolutionary Theory”. In: Journal of Zoological Sys-
tematics and Evolutionary Research 47.1, pp. 7–9. doi:
10.1111/j.1439-0469.2008.00505.x.

Campbell, J A (1997). “Charles Darwin: Rhetorician of Sci-
ence”. In: Landmark Essays on Rhetoric of Science:

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0701072104
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0701072104
https://doi.org/10.5048/BIO-C.2017.2
https://doi.org/10.5048/BIO-C.2017.2
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1439-0469.2008.00505.x


Volume 2, Issue 2

REFERENCES 23

Case Studies. Ed. by R A Harris. 1st edition. Mahwah,
NJ: Hermagoras Press.

Coyne, J (2009). Why Evolution is True. New York: Pen-
guin.

Darwin, C (1859). On the Origin of Species, or the Preser-
vation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. 1st
edition. London: John Murray.

Darwin, C (1860). On the Origin of Species, or the Preser-
vation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. 2nd
British edition. London: John Murray.

Dawkins, R (1996). The Blind Watchmaker. 2nd Edition.
W. W. Norton.

Dear, P (2006). The Intelligibility of Nature: How Sci-
ence Makes Sense of the World. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.

Fodor, J and M Piatelli-Palmarini (2011). What Darwin
Got Wrong. New York: Picador.

Galli, L M González and E N Meinardi (2011). “The Role of
Teleological Thinking in Learning the Darwinian Model
of Evolution”. In: Evo Edu Outreach 4.1, pp. 142–152.
doi: 10.1007/s12052-010-0272-7.

Hyduke, D R and B Ø Palsson (2010). “Towards Genome-
Scale Signalling-Network Reconstructions”. In: Nature
Reviews Genetics 11.4, pp. 297–307. doi: 10 . 1038 /
nrg2750.

Jacob, F (1973). The Logic of Life: A History of Hered-
ity. Trans. by B E Spillmann. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.

Jacob, F (1977). “Evolution and Tinkering”. In: Science
196.4295, pp. 1161–1166. doi: 10 . 1126 / science .
860134.

Kramer, P J (1984). “Misuse of the Term Strategy”. In:
BioScience 34.7. doi: 10.2307/1309624.

Lako", G and M Johnson (2003). Metaphors We Live By.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lewis, C S (2013). “Bluspels and Flalansferes: A Semantic
Nightmare”. In: Selected Literary Essays. New York:
Cambridge University Press.

Mader, S S and M Windelspecht (2015). Essentials of Bi-
ology. 4th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Mayr, E (1974). “Teleological and Teleonomic, a New Anal-
ysis”. In: Methodological and Historical Essays in the
Natural and Social Sciences. Ed. by R S Cohen and M
W Wartofsky. Boston: Reidel, pp. 91–117. url: https:
//philpapers.org/rec/MAYTAT.

Mayr, E (1976). “Accident or Design: The Paradox of Evo-
lution”. In: Evolution and the Diversity of Life. Ed. by
E Mayr. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
pp. 30–43.

Mayr, E (1988). Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Ob-
servations of an Evolutionist. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.

Meyer, S C (2004). “The Origin of Biological Information
and the Higher Taxonomic Categories”. In: Proceedings
of the Biological Society of Washington 117.2, pp. 213–
239.

Moore, A (2011). “We Need a New Language for Evolu-
tion. . . Everywhere”. In: BioEssays 33.4, p. 237. doi:
10.1002/bies.201190011.

Pigliucci, M and M Boudry (2011). “Why Machine-
Information Metaphors are Bad for Science and Science
Education”. In: Science & Education 20.5–6, pp. 453–
471. doi: 10.1007/s11191-010-9267-6.

Pittendrigh, C S (1958). “Adaptation, Natural Selection
and Behavior”. In: Behavior and Evolution. Ed. by A
Roe and G G Simpson. New Haven, CT: Yale Univer-
sity press, pp. 390–416.

Regenmortel, M H V Van (2007). “The Rational Design
of Biological Complexity: A Deceptive Metaphor”. In:
Proteomics 7.6, pp. 965–975. doi: 10 . 1002 / pmic .
200600407.

Richards, R J and M Ruse (2016). “Debating Darwin”. In:
Ruse, M (2000). “Teleology: Yesterday, Today, and To-

morrow”. In: Evolution: Education and Outreach 31.1,
pp. 213–232. doi: 10.1016/s1369-8486(99)00046-1.

Talbott, S L (2007). “The Language of Nature”. In: The
New Atlantis 15, pp. 41–76.

Talbott, S L (2010a). “Getting Over the Code Delusion”.
In: The New Atlantis 28, pp. 3–27.

Talbott, S L (2010b). “The Unbearable Wholeness of Be-
ings”. In: The New Atlantis 29, pp. 27–51.

Talbott, S L (2017). “Evolution and the Purpose of Life”.
In: The New Atlantis 51, pp. 63–91.

Turner, J S (2017). Purpose and Desire: What Makes Some-
thing “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed
to Explain it. New York: HarperCollins.

Wells, J (2017). “Why DNA Mutations Cannot Accomplish
What Neo-Darwinism Requires”. In: Theistic Evolu-
tion: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Cri-
tique. Ed. by J P Moreland et al. Wheaton, IL: Cross-
way, pp. 237–256.

Werth, A and D Allchin (2020). “Teleology’s Long Shadow”.
In: Evolution: Education and Outreach 13.4. doi: 10.
1186/s12052-020-00118-8.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12052-010-0272-7
https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2750
https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg2750
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.860134
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.860134
https://doi.org/10.2307/1309624
https://philpapers.org/rec/MAYTAT
https://philpapers.org/rec/MAYTAT
https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.201190011
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-010-9267-6
https://doi.org/10.1002/pmic.200600407
https://doi.org/10.1002/pmic.200600407
https://doi.org/10.1016/s1369-8486(99)00046-1
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12052-020-00118-8
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12052-020-00118-8



	About This Journal
	The Purpose of the Journal
	Paper Submission Policies
	Other Journal Content

	From the Editors
	Annie CrawfordAnnie CrawfordMetaphor and Meaning  in the Teleological Language of Biology
	Introduction
	The History of Teleology in the Biological Sciences
	Teleological language is Essential to Biology
	If teleological language is essential to biology, then life must be teleological
	Conclusion: Life All the Way Down

	Salvador CordovaSalvador CordovaFisher's Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection  Isn't Fundamental After All
	Introduction: The Problem of Defining Fitness
	Absolute ``Darwinian'' Fitness vs. Relative Fitness
	Mean and Variance of Relative Fitnesses
	Numerical Examples to Illustrate Fisher's Theorem
	Discussion
	Conclusion

	Eric HollowayEric HollowayTutorial: Bioinformatics Basics
	Introduction
	Genetic Code and Sequence Translation
	Sequencing and Assembly
	Accessing Data
	Finding Things With BLAST
	Summary

	Letters and Notes
	Eric HollowayYou Cannot Get Meaning From Randomness
	Jonathan BartlettActive Information is a Specified Complexity Model
	Eric HollowayEvolution in the Valley of Illusions
	Jonathan BartlettIs Active Information Applicable to Biology?
	Eric HollowayEmpirical Active Information

	News

