mis-adaptation

Updated: May 12, 2025

All the rest of the contention against final causes would have come just as fitly from the lips of a man with vision, as from Saunderson. The hypothetical inference of a deity from the marvels of adaptation to be found in the universe is unjustified, among other reasons, because it ignores or leaves unexplained the marvels of mis-adaptation in the universe.

John Morley - Diderot and the Encyclopædists (Vol 1 of 2)