To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science

by Steven Weinberg

There is one aspect of experience that at first sight seems to defy understanding on the basis of any unpurposeful physical theory like the Standard Model. We cannot avoid teleology in talking of living things. We describe hearts and lungs and roots and flowers in terms of the purpose they serve, a tendency that was only increased with the great expansion after Newton of information about plants and animals due to naturalists like Carl Linnaeus and Georges Cuvier. Not only theologians but also scientists including Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton have seen the marvelous capabilities of plants and animals as evidence for a benevolent Creator. Even if we can avoid a supernatural explanation of the capabilities of plants and animals, it long seemed inevitable that an understanding of life would rest on teleological principles very different from those of physical theories like Newton’s.