The Metaphor of the Architect in Darwin: Chance and Free Will

Abstract

In The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, published in 1868, Darwin used the metaphor of the architect to argue in favor of natural autonomy and to clarify the role of chance in his theory of adaptive change by variation and natural selection. In this article, I trace the history of this important heuristic instrument in Darwin's writings and letters and suggest that this metaphor was important to Darwin because it helps him to explain the role of chance, and gives an argument in favor of the free will.

The many chances of Charles Darwin

“…Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences which, by extension, divergences themselves can be said to be "chancy" (i.e., unpredictable) for Darwin. Several other authors (Lennox, 2010;Noguera-Solano, 2013) have also more fully elucidated the role of chance as opposed to design (or, to borrow Noguera-Solano's apt term, "predesign") in variation. All our analyses of Darwin's use of chance, then, must figure out how to come to terms with this thoroughgoing polysemy.…”