"‘Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he’s unwilling to be seen with her in public.’ Today the mistress has become a lawfully wedded wife. Biologists no longer feel obligated to apologize for their use of teleological language; they flaunt it.
Sure, so long as you recognize that "purpose" in
"The purpose of the heart is to pump blood."
cashes out as something different from
"The purpose of the silicon CPU is to implement a truth table."
In my experience, there are about zero philosophers of science who both understand this distinction, and harp on this point about teleology in biology. Here is one I read recently.
"Cashes out" seems rather vague.
In one case, we have a mind to attribute purpose to - and in the other we don't.
However, both are complex adapted systems, produced by other, larger complex adapted systems as part of an optimisation process. If that is all we mean by "purpose", these would be classified in much the same way.
I didn't like the "No Teleology!" link much - it seemed pointless.
Sweet, there's another Bloggingheads episode with Eliezer.
Bloggingheads: Robert Wright and Eliezer Yudkowsky: Science Saturday: Purposes and Futures