From Ends to Causes (and Back Again) by Metaphor: The Paradox of Natural Selection

Abstract

Natural selection is one of the most famous metaphors in the history of science. Charles Darwin used the metaphor and the underlying analogy to frame his ideas about evolution and its main driving mechanism into a full-fledged theory. Because the metaphor turned out to be such a powerful epistemic tool, Darwin naturally assumed that he could also employ it as an educational tool to inform his contemporaries about his findings. Moreover, by using the metaphor Darwin was able to bring his theory in accordance with both the dominant philosophy of science in his time and the respected tradition of natural theology. However, as he introduced his theory of evolution by natural selection in On the origin of species in 1859, the metaphor also turned out to have a serious downside. Because of its intentional overtones, his contemporaries systematically misunderstood his metaphor not as a natural mechanism causing evolution to occur but as an agent who works towards particular ends. The difference in success between natural selection as an epistemic tool and its failure as an educational tool is labelled as a paradox. We explain the paradox from a cognitive perspective and discuss the implications for teaching evolution. KeywordsCharles Darwin -metaphor -natural selection -evolutionary theory -biological educationhistory of biology -conceptual change

The Biology and Evolution of the Three Psychological Tendencies to Anthropomorphize Biology and Evolution

“…They combined incorrect underlying premises about mechanisms and deep-seated cognitive biases ( Gregory, 2009 ). These findings indicate that important causes of widespread misunderstanding about natural selection are cognitive/psychological ( Kelemen, 2012 ; Varella et al, 2013 ; Blancke et al, 2014 ). They are much deeper than lack of acceptance, media exposure, lack of formal education, or religious impediment (cf., Rosengren et al, 2012 ).…”

“…Furthermore, the heuristic value in terms of fostering new research questions and discoveries when asking for reasons, roles, goals, strategies, and values using “why?” and “what for?” questions is also crucial and documented ( Schaffner, 1993 ; Buss et al, 1998 ; Dennett, 1989 , 1995 ; Panksepp, 2003 ; Mayr, 2004 ; Haig, 2012 ; Tooby and Cosmides, 2016 ). Consequent metaphorical thinking helps researchers to model some processes/behaviors and use the grammatical construction of the active voice to didactically explain the dynamics to others ( Ridley, 2003 ; Blancke et al, 2014 ; Galli, 2016 ). Even Darwin (1861) noted that ‘natural selection’ literally is a misnomer that implies the active power of a personified nature, but he argued that such metaphorical expressions are also found in chemistry and physics and added that they are important and almost necessary for brevity.…”

“…Those two phenomena share some conceptual connection ( Carey, 1998 ). Although metaphorically anthropomorphic, the use helps to better grasp these abstract population dynamic ( Darwin, 1861 ; Dennett, 1995 , 2017 ; Pinker, 2007 ; Blancke et al, 2014 ). However, the general hyper-active influence of basic-goal and belief stances on understanding natural selection is called “Darwinian paranoia,” that is the propensity to think of all evolutionary outcomes in terms of an agent’s reasons, plots, and strategies ( Francis, 2004 ; Godfrey-Smith, 2009 ).…”

“…Dennett (2013 , 2017 ) argues that stressing the existence of ‘competence without comprehension’ is crucial for understanding how natural selection can promote efficient functional design but without reasoned planning. Blancke et al (2014) argued that the natural-selection-as-metaphor-of-designer after being dissociated from its intentional overtones actually may aid an initially teleological need-based understanding of evolution, which consequently may function as a scaffold to build a more scientific understanding. Similarly, Galli (2016) emphasized the explicit analysis of the metaphor of design, in order to promote student’s meta-cognitive skills for recognizing, understanding, and regulating the metaphor of design in biology (cf., Galli and Meinardi, 2011 ).…”

Fatal attraction: the intuitive appeal of GMO opposition

“…Furthermore, medical pseudoscience owes its success largely to placebo thinking by which people who are ill can get better merely by thinking that they will [52]. In fact, intuitions affect a wide range of social and cultural domains, such as social institutions and the development of science [52][53][54]. The cases of GMO opposition and pseudoscience demonstrate that intuitions can even favor the distribution of beliefs that are flatly contradicted by evidence.…”