ABSTRACT
What are the implications of my account of biological teleology for human life? Human beings are instances of a type of organism that has evolved by natural selection, as part of an evolutionary tree that extends back to the origins of life on earth. To a significant degree, then, it must be appropriate to view human beings in the way I have argued we must view all other organisms—namely, as complex systems of complementary genes and their well-integrated phenotypic expressions that tend to work as coherent units “designed” by the forces of natural selection primarily to bring about the replication of certain copies of these genes, as specified in chapters four and five. This should hardly be controversial as far as human physiology and morphology are concerned. Human organs, for example, are no less appropriate subjects for biological functional analyses than the organs of other species. Nor is there any reason to suppose that the overall framework will be different: The biological functions of human organs, just like the biological functions of organs in other species, will be understood ultimately in terms of non-incidental contributions to genetic replication.
