Decoupling Design from Darwinian and Skinnerian Selection

Darwin explained how seemingly purposeful and foresightful design could be decoupled from natural selection. Skinner followed suit for selection by reinforcement. Together with cultural selection, these three selectionist ideas represent today's prime pillars of evolutionary thinking in biological and behavioral science. Nevertheless, controversy continues because mentalism still creeps into the efforts of psychologists, biologists, and philosophers to meet the interpretive challenges posed by creative behaviors and innovations. A prime problem may be the unfortunate connotations accompanying the term "selection."