For decades, high-level philosophical terms such as teleology, agency, and purpose have generated intense debate among philosophers whilst rarely being used more than loosely by working scientists. The key to bridging the gap lies in asking: what would a scientifically productive account of purpose look like? How can teleological concepts be operationalised? Our overarching aim is to turn the ideas of function and goal-directedness into practical tools for scientific research through the development of a theoretical framework for biological mistakes.
The capacity for making mistakes is a key marker of a living system, distinguishing it from systems describable purely in terms of infallible physical law. Turning this concept into an analytic framework that not only stimulates new ideas in the philosophy of biology, but directly leads to novel and testable scientific hypotheses, is at the heart of our project.