Purpose and Desire

A professor, biologist, and physiologist argues that modern Darwinisms materialist and mechanistic biases have led to a scientific dead end, unable to define what life isand only an openness to the qualities of "e;purpose and desire"e; will move the field forward.Scott Turner contends. "e;To be scientists, we force ourselves into a Hobsons choice on the matter: accept intentionality and purposefulness as real attributes of life, which disqualifies you as a scientist; or become a scientist and dismiss lifes distinctive quality from your thinking. I have come to believe that this choice actually stands in the way of our having a fully coherent theory of life."e; Growing research shows thatlife's most distinctive quality, shared by all living things, ispurpose and desire: maintain homeostasis to sustain life. In Purpose and Desire, Turner draws on the work of Claude Bernard, a contemporary of Darwin revered among physiologists as the founder of experimental medicine, to build on Bernards "e;dangerous idea"e; of vitalism, which seeks to identify what makes "e;life"e; a unique phenomenon of nature. To further its quest to achieve a fuller understanding of life, Turner argues, science must move beyond strictly accepted measures that consider only the mechanics of nature. A thoughtful appeal to widen our perspective of biology that is grounded in scientific evidence, Purpose and Desire helps us bridge the ideological evolutionary divide.