The term teleology refers to the doctrine that things in nature have a final purpose. Thus, an eye is for seeing, a walk for health, a house for shelter, and a book for reading. Little t teleology so conceived, though, mustn't be confused with big t Teleology, according to which the whole of nature is either progressing, by virtue of some world-historical or cosmic force, toward some overarching purpose or is already the embodiment of some divine plan. That teleology needn't entail Teleology is a cornerstone of evolutionary theory. From the moment that organic life first appeared on Earth some 4.5 billion years ago, natural selection has been an inexorable, unceasing, and entirely mindless process of winnowing and sifting through a set of design plans. The geological record is littered with plant and animal species falling extinct under the pressures of climatic and geographical changes. Only those designs that natural selection has blindly hit upon and that have worked, designs that are well adapted to the specific environment and that therefore confer upon certain organisms or certain species some ostensible advantage, will be inheritable by their progeny. This implies that there is no Higher End, no Higher Purpose that governs the actions of intelligent and unintelligent life, only local purposes fitting into the materialist picture of "selfish genes" seeking to pass on genetic information to their descendants ad infinitum. There is therefore no Teleology from on high, only teleology all the way down.