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Author
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Topic: Natural selection and teleology
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Jakob Wolf
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Member # 166
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posted 04. March 2002 04:47
Reading Niel Brooms paper: "What is Natural Selection? A Plea for Clarification." (From the Archices) the following line of thought came to me: Darwinism claims to be able to explain all phenomena by means of natural selection (NS). Let us suppose this is right, still there must be one phenomenon it cannot explain, because it presupposes it: the will, or more neutraly expressed the urge, to survive in the organisme. The organism cannot be described as a neutral thing (as anorganic things can). It is a being, that prefers being to nonbeing. That is a teleological or maybe even an ethical description (the thing is not just, it also ought to be). The darwinist may claim, that the expression "urge to live", "struggle for survival" is just a metaphor - still I can`t see, how the subject, this metaphor refers to can be reduced to a completely neutral fact. I might even accept the expression a blind urge to survive, it is still a teleological expression. It is obvioius, why the darwinist chooses an expression like "struggle for survival", it is an expression, that come close to a blind aimless force - but it doesnīt succed completely, and that is extremely important to notice.
This observation confirms the german philosopher Immanuel Kants saying, that you cannot describe nature without refering to a teleological cause. Kant however went on and claimed, that teleology is not science in the strict sense. You must not confuse science and teleology. The idea of science in the strict sense is to explain a phenomenon with a natural-mechanical cause. The limit of science is the limit af this sort af explanation. Teleology is an explanation of the selforganizing organisme, which is empirical observable, but it is not a "scientific" explanation, it is just how we humans must speak about it. We cannot have any insight in the teleological cause, because it is transcendent (non-natural, non-immanent.
The crucial question to me is: is Kant right on this point? If Kant is right the implication is, that the darwinist must recognize that he or she presupposes teleology. If he or she just accepts that he or she cannot explain everything (or even essential features of nature) and let go of the most speculative explanations, he or she may go on with immanent causal explanations (one must not set the limit for this explanation too soon. It is an open question how far it goes). Science in this strict sense is per definition reductive, and that is ok.
The job of the teleologist is not to explain (= give immanent causes) but to point to phenomena, which can only be described teleological. The job of the teleologist is phenomenological description of empirical experiences and observations, not causal explanation. The teleologist must concede that his or her activity is not giving immanent causes. That does of cause not mean, that it is an activity of arbitrary speculation. It is exact science in the broad sense, "science" meaning objective description of empirical observations and experiences of nature. (There is a huge need for clarification on the question: In what sense is teleology science (an extremely important science)?)
My question is: is this a right way to put it? Is the relationship between N.S. and teleology one of peaceful co-exitence, or is it fight? Is teleology science in the same way as N.S.?
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James A. Barham
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posted 05. March 2002 09:20
For neo-Kantians like Daniel Dennett, there is no conflict between the apparent teleology of life and mechanistic science, because they assume the teleology is imposed on the appearances by the human mind, while there is no teleology in the "things in themselves," but only blind mechanical causes.
If, however, one assumes the teleology in living things to be real---a manifestation of life itself quite independent of the human mind---then there is a real problem. As you rightly say, natural selection presupposes teleology, so it cannot explain it.
I agree with Kant that there can never be a "Newton of the blade of grass," in the sense that teleology cannot be reduced to mechanistic causation, but I would say that what we need is an "Einstein of the blade of grass," in the sense of breaking out of the mechanistic, reductionist worldview of Newtonian physics altogether.
In sum, I agree wholeheartedly with your critique of natural selection, but I do not believe that "science" need be restricted to mechanistic causes. Fundamental physics has already gone beyond the Newtonian worldview in quantum field theory. What we must now do is attempt to extend the QFT methodology to "the living state." A number of thinkers are attempting to do this (Mae-Wan Ho, Giuseppe Vitiello, G.R. Welch, Victor Norris, and others).
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Jakob Wolf
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posted 06. March 2002 06:14
Hi James,
Thank you for your respons. I have a few comments: I donīt think the distinction between N.S. and teleology has to do with the distinction between "things in themselves" and "things as they appear to us" (phaenomena). Both mechanical causation and teleology has to do with phenomena. The distinction has to do with weather you are able to give an immanent, natural cause to af phenomena or not. It seems to me, that the theory of teleology and ID says, that the phenomena of "irreducible complexity", which Michael Behe has described, does not have an immanent, natural cause (the cause is "intelligent" = non materialistic. To say that nature "has" intelligence is not to say that this intelligence is immanent. It is "in" nature, but it is transcendent). This leads me to conclude, that ID theory canīt be an "explaining" science (to suggest a transcendent cause is not to explain, but to leave open the phenomena to religious interpretation) but a describing science (it also has an important heuristic value). It describes transcendent intelligence at work in the empirical observation of nature. This is something completely different from giving causes to the emergence of phenomena.
You suggest a third possibility: we may extend the QFT-methodology to "the living state". The question to be scrutinized is here, what does that mean? Does this mean, 1) that you by means of this theory are able to explain "irreducible complexities" with an immanent cause, or 2)is this theory a description of a transcendent intelligence at work i nature? If it means 1), to me, that must be the end of all ID theory.
I suggest a radical distinction between theories, that recognizises intelligence at work in nature (teleology), and those which do not. It may be added, that it is ligitimate to recognice teleology, but leave this perspective out in your research as long as you are conscious of this reduction.
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James A. Barham
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posted 06. March 2002 18:21
I stand corrected on my misuse of the "noumena/phenomena" distinction. Since nothing at all can legitimately be said about the noumena according to Kant, I was clearly in error to identify this distinction with the real-mechanistic/fictitious-teleological distinction.
But since the "noumena/phenomena" distinction is otiose as far as our reasoning about our experience is concerned, let's leave that to one side. The question then is whether Kant and Dennett are right to say that "really" all there is is mechanistic causation (however "really" is defined), and that our attribution of teleology to organisms is like our attribution of flatness to the earth or daily rotation to the sun---it is just an illusion that we superimpose upon the reality (if not the "things in themselves," then the things are they are independently of us as observers).
I merely wish to claim that we have no good reason to accept the Kant/Dennett doctrine that teleology is an illusion or a fiction in this sense. It seems to me that immanent teleology enjoys precisely the same epistemological status as anything else that we observe in nature. Whenever we look at any living thing, we always see that all of the mechanistic processes in it are organized in such a way as to achieve proximate goals, with the ultimate goal of maintaining the life of the organism. What reason is there for us to doubt that this is an accurate description of what is "really" going on in organisms, apart from the fact that we cannot give it a good scientific explanation? But if we automatically say that everything we currently do not understand is a mere illusion, how will we ever increase our knowledge?
I believe you basically agree with me here, so perhaps I am beating a dead horse on this subject. The real issue between us (that is, between ID theory and self-organization theory) is whether we must rest content with this description of things, or whether we ought to be optimistic about the ability of science to explain it. Certainly, I agree with ID theorists that mechanistic science (including the natural selection mechanism) does not now explain natural teleology, and never will. However, I remain optimistic about the possibility of expanding our current conception of science in such a way as to offer a kind of explanation (albeit non-mechanistic) of the intelligent agency inherent in all life processes.
I agree with you that such an immanent teleological causality would mean "the end of all ID theory." However, I am not sure I agree that this means that we can neatly divide theories into those that "recognize intelligence at work in nature (teleology), and those which do not." It seems to me that self-organization theory (assuming it can be given some substantive content) would occupy an intermediate position between the standard mechanistic verison of naturalism which denies teleology altogether and ID theory which sees all teleology as being imposed onto inert matter from the outside.
What I am saying is that teleology is real, it exists objectively in organisms themselves, and that this means that biological matter is active, not inert. Science must try to explain this special activity of biological matter, not by "reducing" it to mechanism, but by expanding science to meet the challenge, possibly by extending the mode of explanation we find in QFT to biology. Such an intermediate theory would "recognize intelligence", but would see it as a natural manifestation of the causal powers of the universe itself.
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Tom Stalnaker
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Member # 114
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posted 07. March 2002 11:57
I wouldn't be so quick to conclude that because the language of Darwinism includes teleological
phrases, that the theory assumes teleology. Why couldn't it be that the language is inadequate for describing reality? We don't have any terms or phrases that would describe the "will to survive" in a completely impersonal way, but we can't conclude from that fact that teleology is a part of all life. Let me point out that all the languages developed prior to the Scientific Revolution, back when people assumed that teleology was a fact of the world. A good analogy is quantum mechanics. We don't have any language to describe quantum mechanics; we can only use inadequate terms that are more suited to a Newtonian world-view. However, we cannot conclude from that fact that quantum mechanics assumes a Newtonian world view, or that quantum mechanics is wrong.
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James A. Barham
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posted 07. March 2002 17:22
Certainly, the word "teleology" is a stumbling block for many. That is why the mealy-mouthed euphemism "teleonomy" was invented. But I believe in calling a spade a spade.
Whatever we choose to call it, the fact of the massive coherence and coordination of the individual chemical reactions among the macromolecules in the living cell, all aimed at maintaining the cell in existence, can hardly be rationally denied. The question is how to explain it. I do not believe that molecular biology and natural selection explain this patently goal-directed activity. Pattee, Kant, Dennett, and others say that the problem is only apparent, and that we must rest content with "complementarity"---that is, the mechanistic language of biochemistry on the one hand, and the teleological language of molecular biology (replete with such notions as "messengers", "proofreading" and the like that all presuppose meaning, normativity, and purpose), on the other, with no way of relating the two languages in any coherent way.
All I am saying is that the avenue currently being explored by Mae-Wan Ho, Giuseppe Vitiello, and others is the most promising way of making some kind of sense out of the situation. Naturally, that does not mean it will be successful. It may be that we will have to wait another century or more for this mystery to be solved. But I see no reason to believe a priori that the solution is forever beyond the grasp of natural science, since I do not see why we must define natural science as identical with the investigation of mechanistic causation.
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RalphW
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posted 07. March 2002 18:35
I tend to think in images and am not familiar with the studies that you are refering to, but your description of the goal directed functions of a cell reminded me of a symphony orchestra, with its massive coodination of effort to produce music. The problem I see with the analysis of the "life state" in any terms accessible to science is that it would be comparable in my mind to having a tone deaf person analyze the mechanics of the musical instruments and the physiology of the musicians' efforts to discover the significance of what they were producing. There is a study of music (music theory), but it is not significantly related to mechanics or physiology. Similarly, there may be a study of the life state, but my expectation is that it will be largely unrelated to biochemistry and may more closely approach psychology (which also discusses things like goals and purposes).
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Jakob Wolf
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Member # 166
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posted 08. March 2002 05:44
Iīd like to go on a little further with the question of the possibility of an "immanent teleology." (James). I still think the distiction between immanent and transcendent is very important. If you see a billard ball hit another ball, you donīt have any reason to talk about transcendence. But if you see a wound healing up, you inevitably think that this manifests something that transcends mechanical (unconscious) causation. If you look at the relation between the individual parts in the organism, you see mechanical causation, but if you look at the organism as a whole, you see intention. This intention, I claim, is transcendent, since it is not "in" the organism. It is not in the parts, and it is not in the relation between the parts. Where is it? You may say, that once you have seen the organisme as a whole, you can go back to the parts and locate the teleology "in" the relation between the parts. To me that is logically impossible. What you do is not finding teleology in the organisme, but applying the transcendent intention immanent. I think that you can only use the expression: teleology is "manifested" in the organisme. It is not totally located in the organisme as an object in space. Another example: Consciousness is not a thing in the brain, and it is not identical with the brain as a system, rather: Consciousness is manifested in the brain. Teleology being transcendent does not mean, that you canīt experience it. It is manifested in the organisme, and so you can experience it "at work" in the organisme, but you cannot locate its cause in the organisme. To me the notion "immanent teleology" is only possible if it means, that teleology is manifested in the organisme. It is not possible if it means, that teleology is totally located in the organisme. To me the only alternative to the transcendent teleology is to give up the notion of teleology, and claim that the organism is just a result of an incredible complex mechanical causation.
As you can tell, I am not a scientist but a philosopher. I am really anxious to see if a scientific discovery or theory can break my philosophical logic. I am still a sceptic.
I donīt think the distinction between matter as inert or as active is helpful. Matter is active because of a cause, which is either mechanical or teleological.
It seems to me, that Dennett does not represent Kants view on teleology very well. Kant did certainly not see teleology as an illusion like our attribution of flatness to the earth. Kant saw teleology as an analogy, and not just as any analogy, but as the best possible.
Mechanical causation is an adequate conception because it relates to an immanent fact. Teleology is not totally adequate because it refers to a transcendent fact, but it is still a very, very, very good analogy.
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James A. Barham
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posted 08. March 2002 06:53
To Ralph W:
Yes, the symphony orchestra analogy has been used often to describe the cell. I like to make the additional point that it is a conductorless symphony, with the macromolecules apparently acting as individual agents, like the individual players in the orchestra. I call this the "Orpheus principle" after the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra (see my "Beyond Darwin and Nietzsche: On the Origin of Value in the Music of the Cells").
Probably the analogy is not perfect---I do not think that the relation enzyme/cell is exactly like the relationship violinist/orchestra. But I do believe that the original roots of agency can be traced all the way down to the enzyme. It is enough to reflect on the way that drugs work to see this. Most drugs work by imitating the natural substrate of an enzyme, causing it to bind to the "wrong" molecule, and thus causing it is cease functioning. The capacity to be mistaken or to malfunction is the heart of normativity, and individual enzymes seem to have this capacity. So I do believe that the "Orpheus principle" points to a real phenomenon in the cell. Of course, it is only a label. The challenge is to put some scientific substance behind it. That is what people like Mae-Wan Ho, Giuseppe Vitiello, Jiri Pokorny, Tsu-Ming Wu, and others are trying to do. I can supply references for anyone who is interested.
To Jakob Wolf:
I agree that the immanent/transcendent distinction is the correct one to describe the difference between your views and mine. But I do not see that you are advancing any arguments for the transcendent view. Forgive me if I am missing your point somehow, but it is not enough simply to invoke Kant or simply to say that the teleology manifest in the behavior of the cell must be transcendent in the metaphysical sense simply because it transcends mechanistic biology as currently constituted.
Science changes all the time. There are many people working as we speak to effect a change in biology similar to the one wrought in condensed matter physics in the post-war period. I don't suppose you want to say that rigidity or superconductivity "transcends" crystalline matter in the metaphysical sense, do you? And yet we now know that these and other similar global properties certainly do transcend the old mechansitic, Newtonian view of physics, even though they are obviously immanent in the metaphysical sense.
For example, the property of rigidity in crystals is mediated by collective quantum modes or resonances called "phonons." These collective modes are certainly real---we can scatter neutrons off of them, that is, they are "kickable", as the great philosopher/physicist Sunny Auyang like to say is the criterion of reality. And yet, they have no existence as entities apart from the crystal lattice as a whole---they cannot be isolated.
The QFT view of living matter makes an analogy between the goal-directed activity of the cell and the collective modes in crystals. Specifically, Herbert Froehlich and others posit collective modes that are connected with the electric dipole characteristic that is ubiquitous in proteins. I am not saying that this is necessarily the final answer. It is early days yet, for that. All I am saying is that we can already see in very rough outline how a scientific explanation for the immanent teleology of the cell (that is, the Orpheus principle) might be possible---albeit one that transcends biochemistry and natural selection.
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Bryan Cross
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posted 08. March 2002 09:54
Unless biological teleology cannot be explained ateleologically, the appeal to teleology requires no expansion of allowable scientific causes. The only biological teleology that [apparently] cannot be explained ateleologically is IC and/or CSI. Therefore the argument from biological teleology to an expansion of allowable scientific causes reduces to the argument from IC and/or CSI.
- Bryan
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James A. Barham
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posted 10. March 2002 17:28
The problem of teleology has been well-known since Antiquity---it is clearly stated in both Aristotle and in Cicero---namely, that goal-directed processes cannot be reduced to purely mechanical causes.
That is the problem of teleology (or perhaps I should say, that is what I mean by the term). The Darwinians disagree. They believe they have an explanation or reduction of teleology to mechanism. They are demonstrably wrong because the natural selection "mechanism" actually presupposes teleology, and so cannot explain it. Likewise the cybernetic and computationalist approaches. So the problem is real.
The question then becomes, Can we be sure that no expansion of science is conceivable and hence a supernatural explanation is necessary?, or Is it still possible that science may explain teleology by incorporating it into an expanded explanatory framework that transcends purely mechanistic causality?
So, while I respect the clarity that ID has brought to the debate---and especially I appreciate the way that ID is making the Darwinians squirm---I do not accept that the ID notions of "irreducible complexity" (which to me is question-begging) or specified complexity are necessary to pose the problem, much less that they prove that only a supernatural solution to the problem is conceivable.
The problem of teleology can be very well posed in terms of statistical mechanics and probability theory---in short, in terms of ordinary physics. The apparatus of information theory is interesting, but not indispensable. Indeed, in my view, it raises more problems than it solves, chiefly by begging the question of the semantic character of information.
I think that, by agreeing with mainstream Darwinian science that organisms are machines, ID commits the same mistake that they do. Rather, than proving "design" (i.e., by an outside agent), the design inference can just as well be viewed as a reductio ad absurdum of the premise that organisms are machines. I simply believe that the most promising way forward is to reject this premise, to admit what is apparently obviou---namely, that organisms and machines belong to entirely different metaphysical categories---and to see where this line of thinking leads. (Robert Rosen is the crucial thinker who has expounded this point at length in his voluminous and eloquent writings.)
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Jakob Wolf
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posted 11. March 2002 10:04
To James A. Barham.
I would be grateful, if you could supply references to the people you mention. I feel, I begin to lack scientific insight in order to fully understand your examples.
Still though a couple of questions:
The crystal example: Does it mean that the "phonons" are the cause of the crystal lattice - or is the crystal lattice as a whole the cause of the phonons?
The "Orpheus principle": You say: "...it is a conductorless symphony, with the macromolecules apparently acting as individual agents." To me it seems, that you are just moving the question of teleology from the "whole" to the parts. Now the part in it self acts teleological. So again teleology is not explained but presupposed.
In your last respons, you say, that Darwinism and ID commits the same mistake seeing the organism as a machine. The ID sees the organism as a machine, because the "agent" is outside the organism. Your alternative is that the "agent" is in the organism. - My problem is still, where is it in the organism? If you say it is in the parts, it is still a problem where it is in the parts. You say the machine and the organism "belongs to entirely different metaphysical categories." I think it is correct, that a machine and an organism is not the same. The machine is just an analogy to the organisme. The likeness is that the machine and the organism is a teleological working whole. The difference is, that the telos is put into the machine by a human being, while we donīt know "who" has put the telos into the organism. The difference is not, wether the telos is outside or inside, because you canīt find the telos "in" the organism, and the organism cannot itself produce the telos. If you say, it produces the telos, the telos must be presupposed.
By all this I donīt want to say, that science cannot transcend purely mechanistik causality and develop as it has - of course not - all I want to investigate is, what does statistical mechanics and probability theory and so on actually explain? The crucial philosophical question is: is it really able to objectify teleology as an objektive fact in the organism?
To me ID theory (if it holds) doesnīt stop the development of science, it just makes science realize, that it presupposes a metaphysical cause, which is not a scientific object.
[ 11 March 2002, 10:11: Message edited by: Jakob Wolf ]
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James A. Barham
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posted 12. March 2002 00:06
Jakob:
I am no physicist, but as I understand it, there is something in quantum field theory (QFT) called the "Goldstone Theorem" which states that every act of spontaneous symmetry breaking (which is how order is created) involves massless particles or bosons (the Goldstone modes or resonances) which mediate the long-range correlations or coherence within the affected matter. In a crystal, these modes are known as "phonons," but the principle is supposedly quite general.
The best general reference work on condensed-matter physics I know of is P.M. Chaikin & T.C. Lubensky, Principles of Condensed Matter Physics, Cambridge UP, 1995.
That is tough slogging, however. The most accessible short treament of the Goldstone phenomenon that I know of is in Giuseppe Vitiello, My Double Unveiled: The Dissipative Quantum Model of Brain, John Benjamins, 2001, see, especially, pp. 31--34.
The other crucial author on the application of QFT to biology is Mae-Wan Ho. See her book, The Rainbow and the Worm: The Physics of Organisms, World Scientific, 1993, and her recent article, "Towards a Theory of the Organism," Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science, 1997, 32: 343--363.
There are any number of more general works that I have found useful in developing my "biofunctional realist" approach. Above all, there is the seminal critique of philosophical mechanism by the great theoretical biologist, the late Robert Rosen, Life Itself: A Comprehensive Inquiry into the Nature, Origin, and Fabrication of Life, Cornell UP, 1991.
Some other very useful works are the following:
Sunny Y. Auyang, Foundations of Complex-System Theories, Cambridge UP, 1998.
Philip Ball. The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature, Oxford UP, 1999.
Robert W. Batterman, The Devil in the Details: Asymptotic Reasoning in Explanation, Reduction, and Emergence. Oxford UP, 2002.
Julio Callado-Vides et al. (eds.), Integrative Approaches to Molecular Biology, MIT Press, 1996.
Franklin M. Harold. The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms, and the Order of Life, Oxford UP, 2001.
Robert B. Laughlin et al., "The Middle Way," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 2000, 97: 32--37.
Howard Pattee, "The Physics of Symbols: Bridging the Epistemic Cut," BioSystems, 2001, 60: 5--21.
Ricard Sole and Brian Goodwin, Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology, Basic Books, 2000.
F. Eugene Yates, "Order and Complexity in Dynamical Systems: Homeodynamics as a Generalized Mechanics for Biology," Mathematical and Computer Modeling, 1994, 19: 49--74.
(The last one is especially recommended.)
In addition to these general works on nonlinear dynamics and biology, there are some very important recent books challenging the mechanistic approach specifically in the areas of the role of the genome and the brain:
Against genocentrism, see:
Eytan Avital and Eva Jablonka, Animal Traditions: Behavioural Inheritance in Evolution, Cambridge UP, 2000.
Lynn Helena Caporale (ed.), Molecular Strategies in Biological Evolution, New York Academy of Sciences (Annals, Vol. 870), 1999.
Evelyn Fox Keller, The Century of the Gene, Harvard UP, 2000.
Susan Oyama et al. (eds.), Cycles of Contingency: Developmental Systems and Evolution. MIT Press, 2001.
Against the computer metaphor for the brain, see:
Sunny Y. Auyang, Mind in Everyday Life and Cognitive Science, MIT Press, 2000.
Walter J. Freeman, How Brains Make Up Their Minds, Columbia UP, 2000.
Robert F. Port and Timothy van Gelder (eds.), Mind as Motion, MIT Press, 1995.
Finally, if you are interested in following up these ideas in a philosophical context, you may want to look at my "Biofunctional Realism and the Problem of Teleology," Evolution and Cognition, 2000, 6: 2--34, and "Theses on Darwin," Rivista di Biology/Biology Forum, 2002, 95: 101--133.
Thanks for your interest!
James
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Bryan Cross
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posted 13. March 2002 10:14
James,
quote:
That is the problem of teleology (or perhaps I should say, that is what I mean by the term). The Darwinians disagree. They believe they have an explanation or reduction of teleology to mechanism. They are demonstrably wrong because the natural selection "mechanism" actually presupposes teleology, and so cannot explain it.
How does the natural selection mechanism presuppose teleology?
- Bryan
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James A. Barham
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posted 13. March 2002 18:08
If we define natural selection as differential reproduction due to differential success of heritable functional variability, then it is clear that natural selection simply presupposes the notions of function and of success. Even the short-hand formula "survival of the fittest" makes this clear---"survival" is not a concept that can be cashed out in terms of physics and chemistry. It implies the active, intelligent striving of the organism to maintain itself in existence against the second law of thermodynamics. Function, success, fitness, survival---all of these are teleological notions through and through. Since natural selection presupposes these teleological phenomena, it cannot explain them.
The bottom line is that all life processes are functional or goal-directed at all times, in all generations. When new functional "traits" arise (whether via point mutations or in a more functionally directed way), they are immediately recruited into some functional system. The only traits that get transmitted are ones that are capable of functional recruitment in this way (otherwise, they would be lethal). So, there is no such thing as a non-functional trait that can have functionality magically conferred upon it by natural selection, as Darwinian philosophers like Dretske and Millikan argue.
In short, at least as far as teleology is concerned, natural selection is a massive exercise in question begging.
Now, some Darwinians will more or less acknowledge this problem, arguing that the reduction of teleology to mechanism does not take place via natural selection per se, but rather via natural selection in conjunction with biochemistry, molecular biology, information theory, etc. (Ernst Mayr and George C. Williams both take this line). But since biochemistry, molecular biology, etc. do not explain the teleological organization of the cell, either, this move clearly does not work.
Selection theory and molecular biology are like a shell game---no matter which one you examine, the final reduction of teleology to mechanism always turns out to be under the other one.
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