“Chemistry students and teachers often explain the chemical reactivity of atoms, molecules, and chemical substances in terms of purposes or needs (e.g., atoms want or need to gain, lose, or share electrons in order to become more stable). These teleological explanations seem to have pedagogical value as they help students understand and use abstract chemical models. They may, however, become a roadblock in developing mechanistic understandings of the structure and properties of chemical systems. I explore the explanatory preferences of college students with different levels of training in chemistry to determine the extent to which they prefer teleological explanations over causal explanations. Major results revealed a strong preference at all the targeted educational levels for explanations that invoke intentionality as a driver for chemical reactivity.”

Teleological (anthropomorphic or intentionality-invoking) [explanation built in terms of the consequences of event]		Causal (mechanistic or physiochemically-neutral) [explanation built in terms of the antecedents of event]
Sodium atoms want to lose one electron so that they can have a full electron shell.		Sodium atoms have one electron in a valence orbital with a higher energy than available valence orbitals in other atoms.

The results of one of Talanquer's 2013 chemical teleology vs chemical causality surveys, given to second semester general chemistry students; which show a host of issues, with his slanted data mining method.

“Consider, for example, the following textbook excerpt (Chemistry: the Central Science [2006], p 650):

‘If a chemical system is at equilibrium and we add a substance (either a reactant or a product), the reaction will shift so as to reestablish equilibrium by consuming part of the added substance.’

This statement about Le Chatelier’s principle is teleological because it seems to imply that the change in the system is driven by the system’s goal or intention to reestablish equilibrium. In general, such teleological explanations tend to be linked to the existence of a principle or law (e.g., the second law of thermodynamics) that explicitly or implicitly implies the minimization or maximization of some intrinsic property (e.g., minimization of energy, maximization of entropy). This law or principle tends to provide a sense of preferred direction in the evolution of a transformation. In these contexts, explanations built in terms of purposes or desires reduce complex emergent processes into simpler directed events.”

“Teleological explanations generate an illusion of understanding that may hinder learning in the longer term. Overreliance on teleological explanations may limit students’ ability and motivation to build deeper mechanistic explanations about chemical phenomena.”

— Vincente Talanquer (2013), “When Atoms Want” [2]

“If we state, e.g., ‘sodium atoms lose one electron to become more stable’, we are building a teleological explanation because we are using the consequences of an event (to become more stable) to explain why the event (loss of an electron) happened. In these types of explanations, entities are portrayed as having purposes or desires, acting to attain certain needs or to fulfill some function.”

— Vincente Talanquer (2013), “When Atoms Want” [2]