> Human beings are predisposed to think of evolution as teleological—i.e., having a purpose or directive principle—and the ways scientists talk about natural selection can feed this predisposition.

> it is hardly surprising that when thinking about how organisms evolve, people assume that evolution is closely related to the pursuit of certain purposes, such as survival. It is this functionality—this explanatory and predictive power—which explains the resistance to changing these conceptions. Why should people change their way of thinking when this appears to be corroborated by everyday experience? This way of thinking predicts that living beings are adapted and adaptable systems, and so they are. 

> Of course, the scientific model has a broader explanatory power, and is more consistent, than the teleological thinking shown by students. However, evidence showing the limitations of teleological conceptions does not occur spontaneously. Hence, it is not easy to make students feel the shortcomings of their thinking system, and it is even harder for them to replace it with a different set of counterintuitive explanations ...

Galli, L. M. G., & Meinardi, E. N. (2011). The role of teleological thinking in learning the Darwinian model of evolution. Evolution: Education and outreach, 4(1), 145.

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