The context is not just evolution but naturalism in general.
The teleological fallacy, found in religious and “traditional” world-views, says that most or all things exist for a purpose. By examining how they are useful to us, or to other living creatures, we can often discover this purpose. The purpose is an inherent and unchanging quality of things, which also means there are objectively ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways to use certain things, ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ behaviors.
Examples: hares exist for foxes to eat. The Sun exists for us to be able to see. Air exists for us to be able to breath it.
This is, in fact, a triple fallacy. First, it often assumes (or, worse, tries to prove) a creator God that created everything for a purpose, which is false. Second, it reverses the direction of adaptation: in reality, given that there is a sun, we evolved eyes that can see its light; subterranean creatures lose their eyesight. Third, it claims to find objective, inherent, unchanging purposes in things (and thus, define ‘natural’ or ‘correct’ behaviors), but in fact these claimed purposes are entirely subjective either due to the choice of the method for finding them, or (in many cases) due to people simply announcing what they think a thing’s purpose is without any method at all.
The context is not just evolution but naturalism in general.
The teleological fallacy, found in religious and “traditional” world-views, says that most or all things exist for a purpose. By examining how they are useful to us, or to other living creatures, we can often discover this purpose. The purpose is an inherent and unchanging quality of things, which also means there are objectively ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways to use certain things, ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ behaviors.
Examples: hares exist for foxes to eat. The Sun exists for us to be able to see. Air exists for us to be able to breath it.
This is, in fact, a triple fallacy. First, it often assumes (or, worse, tries to prove) a creator God that created everything for a purpose, which is false. Second, it reverses the direction of adaptation: in reality, given that there is a sun, we evolved eyes that can see its light; subterranean creatures lose their eyesight. Third, it claims to find objective, inherent, unchanging purposes in things (and thus, define ‘natural’ or ‘correct’ behaviors), but in fact these claimed purposes are entirely subjective either due to the choice of the method for finding them, or (in many cases) due to people simply announcing what they think a thing’s purpose is without any method at all.