ANIMAL MIND AND THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN

The argument from design has played an important role in the history o f philosophy and biology. Paley, the 19th-century theologian, was stru ck by the bodily complexity and adaptive fit of animals to their envir onments; he used the argument from design to prove the existence of Go d. Darwin, however; provided the natural evolutionary mechanisms that eliminated the need for positing a divine creator to explain the struc ture of animals; he was thus able to treat the historical problem of o rganic evolution by providing a historical solution. Today, some stude nts of behavior are similarly struck by the complexity of animals' act ions and their adaptive fit to the environment. Like Paley, they use t he argument from design, brit to prove the existence of a conscious de signer inside the head of the animal-the mind. This mentalistic approa ch suffers from many of the philosophical and empirical problems that plagued similar efforts in the past.