Organisms and Artifacts

Abstract

In Organisms and Artifacts, Tim Lewens investigates the analogical use of the language of design in evolutionary biology. Uniquely among the natural sciences, biology uses descriptive and explanatory terms more suited to artifacts than organisms. When biologists discuss, for example, the purpose of the panda's thumb and look for functional explanations for organic traits, they borrow from a vocabulary of intelligent design that Darwin's findings could have made irrelevant over a hundred years ago. Lewens argues that examining the analogy between the processes of evolution and the processes by which artifacts are created—looking at organisms as analogical artifacts—sheds light on explanations of the form of both organic and inorganic objects. He argues further that understanding the analogy is important for what it can tell us not only about biology but about technology and philosophy. In the course of his argument, Lewens discusses issues of interest to philosophers of biology, biologists, philosophers of mind, and students of technology. These issues include the pitfalls of the design-based thinking of adaptationism, the possible conflict between selection explanations and developmental explanations, a proposed explanation of biological function, and prospects for an informative evolutionary model of technological change. Emerging from these discussions is an explanation of the use of the vocabulary of intelligence and intention in biology that does not itself draw on the ideas of intelligent design, which will be of interest in the ongoing debate over intelligent design creationism. Bradford Books imprint

Functions and Health at the Interface of Biology and Technology

“…My taxonomy roughly coincides with those of Godfrey‐Smith (; ), Lewens (), Neander (), Schlosser (1993; who calls causal role approaches ‘organizational approaches’), Schwartz (), and Roszkowski (). But see Walsh & Ariew () or Perlman () for alternative and more detailed classifications.…”

Population thinking and natural selection in dual-inheritance theory

“…On the statistical interpretation of natural selection favoured by Lewens (2004; Walsh et al 2002), aggregative thinking seeks explanations in terms of individual-level selective forces, not in terms of the purely population-level ‘force’ of selection. Thus, natural-selection explanations (on Lewens’ construal) are not a subtype of aggregative thinking, although they are a subtype of population thinking in the broader sense.…”

Engineering and Biology: Counsel for a Continued Relationship

“…For example, a frequent assumption is that any mention of “design principles” (or just “design”) to describe an evolved structure implicitly relies on strong assumptions about the power of selection. This inference is coupled to a particular view of “reverse engineering,” where to reverse engineer some artifact involves making a claim about its evolutionary history (Griffiths 1996; Lewens 2005). But if we look at a field such as biomimetics—where engineers produce designs inspired by a natural system—we find a version of reverse engineering and talk of “design principles” that is not coupled to evolutionary history (Calcott 2014; Green et al 2014a).…”