From Mary Midgley
Greg Barnett is right to say that “the likelihood that many genetic
attributes have absolutely no advantage or disadvantage” is a well-documented
evolutionary principle—one formulated by Darwin among others
(4 September, p 54).
However, neo-providentialism—the insistence on finding such
“evolutionary functions”—is rampant today. Just as theologians used to
seek out divine uses for wasps and nettles (handy for rousing humans into
activity), so strange adaptive functions are constantly found for human traits.
Similarly, the flamingo’s pink legs are thought to be camouflage against the
sunset when they are actually due to a diet of shrimps.
Could someone develop a vaccine against this teleological virus?
Newcastle upon Tyne
