Fetal experience and good adult designa

Abstract

Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose. This thought has been articulated most clearly in recent years by Richard Dawkins,¹ but it has been expressed in various ways for 200 years. A traveller finding a watch on a mountain path would not fail to attribute the quality of its design to human agency. A great British naturalist and theologian, William Paley² regarded the design he saw everywhere in nature as proof of the existence of God. These days, the design to which Paley referred would instead be attributed by most biologists to blind Darwinian evolution. The form and behaviour of individuals vary within the same species and, in any given set of environmental conditions, some individuals may be better able to survive and reproduce than others because their distinctive characteristics are particularly well suited to those conditions. If their characteristics are inherited, then an ever increasing number of individuals in the population will be better adapted to that environment than was previously the case.