The relationship between biological function and teleology: Implications for biology education

Abstract

Abstract This paper explicates the relationship between biological function and teleology by focusing not only on difference but also on conceptual overlap. By doing so, this paper is meant to increase awareness of the misleading potential of biological function and the educational necessity to explicate the meaning of biological function to biology students to prevent them from drawing inadequate teleological conclusions about biological phenomena. The conceptual overlap between teleology and biological function lies in the notion oftelos(end, goal). Biologically inadequate teleology assumes thatteloi(ends, goals) exist in nature and that natural mechanisms are directed towardsteloi. Such inadequate teleological assumptions have been documented in students’ reasoning about biological phenomena. Biological function, however, does not involve the assumption thatteloiexist in nature. Rather, biologists use the notion oftelosas anepistemological toolwhenever they consider a structure or mechanism functional because they view this structure or mechanism as a means to an end (telos). Whereas for biologists such means-ends conceptualizations represent a productive tool for identifying biological phenomena functionally, for students, such means-ends considerations can be misleading. Therefore, this paper explicates how far the concept of biological function involves reference to ends (teloi) and how it relates to biological mechanisms. The paper draws implications on how to prevent students from slipping from functional reasoning into inadequate teleological reasoning.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 33 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.