Consider that it's not just the word "design" that that ateleologists use, but pretty much the entire teleological lexicon ("design", "function", "purpose", "meant for", "selection", etc) when it comes down to actually describing biological phenomena! There is obviously some reason for this correlation - some reason ateleologists cannot just use completely different language to describe their "completely different" concepts.

So, if I understand you correctly, your position is that the employment of a teleological lexicon and metaphors by biologists constitutes actual evidence of design.

If that is your position, wouldn't the use of nonteleological language and metaphors by biologists constitute evidence against design as well?

You seem to be saying that every intuition is correct, but that we sometimes apply an intuition to the wrong situation. To me, that sounds like telling the math teacher that all of your answers on the exam were correct — they just weren't the answers to the questions the teacher was asking.

I can't buy it. The intuition in the birthday scenario is that the odds of a match are low with 23 people in the room. That intuition is wrong, and gets replaced by a completely different notion: the odds are better than even with 23 people in the room.

Even if were to accept your explanation for our intuitions about the flatness of the earth and the likelihood of shared birthdays, how would it address the checker-shadow illusion?

Simply tossing our intuitions aside is very dangerous. We must assume that our intuitions tell us the truth about reality, or else we must give up science altogether.

Deuce,

We can't assume that our intuitions tell us the truth about reality. They are self-contradictory. If intuitions tell us the truth about reality, then we are forced to concede that reality itself is ultimately unintelligible.

It's true that some intuitions must be accepted as fundamental, such as logic itself. Science could not proceed without it. But other intuitions must be shed, as Mesk says, for science to progress.

Two of my favorite examples of faulty intuition:

1. In a room containing just 23 people, what are the odds that at least two share the same birthday? Intuition balks at the idea that the answer is greater than 50-50, but it is.

2. Adelson's checker-shadow illusion. Intuition tells us that squares A and B cannot possibly be the same shade of gray, even if we are familiar with optical illusions and have learned to distrust our vision to an extent. (Be sure to click on proof and explanation to convince yourself.)

In each of these cases, we are tempted to go with our immediate intuitions. Further analysis reveals that to accept these intuitions as true would require us to reject intuitions that are even more fundamental, such as logic itself. Most of us wisely demur and stick with logic.

To a surprisingly large extent, humanity's advances in knowledge can be viewed as a competition of intuitions. Most are jettisoned in favor of views derived from a few fundamental intuitions, with the goal being a satisfactory and coherent view of the world based on a minimal set of intuitions.

There is some danger in tossing intuitions aside, as you say, but assuming their truth uncritically is even more dangerous, and ultimately futile.

Would it be fair to say that your arguments are proximate to the speculation that we are in The Matrix?

Regarding "there are no selection criteria in the physical environment," etc, that appears to be an untouchable philosophical position.

Perhaps, but only in the sense that "1 is not 2" is an untouchable philosophical position. By that I mean, there are no selection criteria in the physical environment by definition. The normal definition of "criteria" is a teleological one. A person's criteria are their goals, what they intend to achieve. So the problem with saying that there are selection criteria in the environment isn't primarily that it's wrong, but that it doesn't have any meaning. It's like saying that coffee is cheerful, or that the number 3 is bored. How am I even supposed to conceptualize that? On the other hand, saying, "we can develop an evolutionary algorithm, in which the selection criteria will be represented by the environment" - now that makes sense.

Or to put it another way, using the normal definition of the word, it only makes sense to say that the environment has "selection criteria" if you are conceiving of the environment as a person with intentions or goals. But it's precisely the point of the ateleological position to try to account for life without the need of a person with intentions or goals.

Since you don't believe me, I would suggest describing your dirt pile example to a knowledgeable third party and ask if it fulfills the requirements of an evolutionary algorithm.

I agree that the dirt pile itself doesn't fulfill the requirements of an evolutionary algorithm, it being a physical thing. My claim was that it should be possible, in principle, to tailor an evolutionary algorithm that would describe the dirt pile's history, by deciding in post-hoc fashion which things would represent our "selection criteria", and which would represent "mutations", and so forth.

Regarding "there are no selection criteria in the physical environment," etc, that appears to be an untouchable philosophical position.

But so would the counter-argument to this. Selection criteria in the physical environment is erroneously believed to exclude an intelligently devised evolutionary algorithm. If I understand Deuce correctly there is no way to distinguish whether the applicable algorithm describes the effects of blind physical forces or directed ones. For the purpose of imputing and detecting design it does not matter.

We may very well be cogs in a grand evolutionary algorithm which we have come to call the Universe, conceived in the mind of The Designer and implemented by His intentions. It remains to be seen whether this or similar ideas will make any practical contribution to science.

Biological systems have features that are unique with respect to other branches of science. It may very well be that reminding ourselves that there is an appearance but not a reality to design is counter to reality as well as results.