Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
very difficult task. In the progress of a given scientific inquiry, there is no virtue
in premature exchange of data language for theory language.
The teleological trap arises because in humans, conscious action (and even
empathy to other people's unconscious actions) often involves mental plans
and objectives that stimulate or explain the performance of behaviors. But
consciousness has not been proved in other species and to confuse proximate
factors with ultimate factors in this way may stifle correct interpretation. As
Kennedy (1986:23-24) noted, “Teleological terms such as 'searching' . . .
really describe the animal's presumed state of mind. . . . Trying to find an
objective substitute for a teleological term will always pay off in research
because it forces a mental break-out and a closer look at the components of the
behaviour actually observed, components which the handy teleological term
leaves unnoticed or at best unformulated in the back of the mind.” Kennedy
concluded that
scanning
would be a more useful term for searching. The worst
cases of teleology may use such “catchy” labels that proximate and even ulti-
mate function are obscured in the mind of the reader (if not the writer)
because of the human innuendo of the word.
Rape,
used as a label for resisted
matings, has been widely considered a case in point.
Used correctly, “mock anthropomorphism” can be a very valuable heuristic
tool to guess the function of behavior, using our own mental processes to
explain behavior in an ultimate fitness context (Mitchell et al. 1997). Such
hypotheses can be tested, but even if they are supported we must beware of
unwittingly crossing the threshold of assuming that the animal has used the
same mental processes when deciding on its own actions. The temptation of
teleology—to impose our mental model on others—may be greatest when
dealing with other primates. Tinbergen (1963:413-414) foresaw this when he
wrote, “Teleology may be a stumbling block to causal analysis in its less obvi-
ous forms. . . . The more complex the behaviour systems we deal with, the
more dangerous this can be.” These strictures against teleology do not imply
that ethologists diminish animals to the level of Descartean
machina anima;
rather, the objective is to be mindful of Lloyd Morgan's canon that “In no case
may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical
faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which
stands lower in the psychological scale” (Kennedy 1986). This is a method-
ological rather than ideological stance, which may be more likely to be correct
than the converse assessment. As Dawkins (1989:95) put it, a pragmatic aid in
navigating this tricky terrain is to advance “always reassuring ourselves that we
could translate our sloppy language into respectable terms if we wanted to.”
