A relic of design: against proper functions in biology

Springer Science and Business Media LLC - Tập 37 - Trang 1-28 - 2022
Emanuele Ratti1,2, Pierre-Luc Germain3,4
1Institute of Philosophy and Scientific Method, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Linz, Austria
2Department of Humanities and Arts, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel
3D-HEST Institute for Neuroscience, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
4DLMS Lab of Statistical Bioinformatics, University of Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

Tóm tắt

The notion of biological function is fraught with difficulties—intrinsically and irremediably so, we argue. The physiological practice of functional ascription originates from a time when organisms were thought to be designed and remained largely unchanged since. In a secularized worldview, this creates a paradox which accounts of functions as selected effect attempt to resolve. This attempt, we argue, misses its target in physiology and it brings problems of its own. Instead, we propose that a better solution to the conundrum of biological functions is to abandon the notion altogether, a prospect not only less daunting than it appears, but arguably the natural continuation of the naturalisation of biology.

Tài liệu tham khảo

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