[Taxacom] teleology example

[Curtis Clark]

On 2013-03-07 5:38 AM, Jason Robinson wrote:
> How much of the teleology "smuggled into" scientific explanation is a 
> spandrel of the English language?
>
> I've had this discussion with a few linguist friends and they have 
> indicated to me that they believe the syntactical structure of phrases 
> and sentences in English are more or less pre-adapted to teleology 
> (e.g. "the computer won't let me do this" is something we all say and 
> all understand even though we deny the agency of a computer).

Exactly!

-- 
Curtis Clark        http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark
Biological Sciences                   +1 909 869 4140
Cal Poly Pomona, Pomona CA 91768