Competing? LOL You read read purpose into this just like everybody else. And as far as we know we read purpose into our own lives and actions just as much. You can say it is just the human way of thinking. Is there an ounce of purposefulness in any of the objective evidence about anything? Maybe not. But I guess the point is that I don’t see any difference between these processes (particularly the biological ones) and any of the things we call purposeful. When we look too closely at any of it, it is like looking at a book with a magnifying glass. The story/purposefulness simply vanishes when you do that.
I could say the same thing about Santa Claus – how is one any more or less of a human invention than the other?
I once wrote a story where it was possible to learn to choose purposeful mutations, but achieving the ability required understanding the formation and folding of proteins well enough to be able to know what a given mutation would do plus how to get it to express in the intended body tissue. In the end it was realized that the only way to live long enough to learn these items was to transfer one’s consciousness to an artificial-technological-computer brain – which made the effort pointless since such a transfer required a matching body, and that left no DNA to work with.
That is a possibility. I guess such a situation is not an evolutionary stable strategy as it opens the system for any mutation that would overcome this cause of lower fitness.
Another complication relating to maximizing fitness is the possibility of genetic linkage.
Genetic linkage leads to the fact that a harmful gene, if physically tied to a beneficial one, may spread because the net effect still is advantageous. Basically, the two genes happen to be close enough together in DNA that they tend to be transmitted together.
“Competing” does not have to mean purpose. Two simultaneous chemical reactions involving some of the same reagents are labeled as “competing”. It simply designates a situation with some mutually exclusive possible outcomes.
But you are quite right to emphasize the level at which one looks at something in assessing “purpose”. Genesis 1 declares that all things and processes in nature are merely parts of creation, with no rival agendas of their own. Thus, it should come as no surprise that a study of the physical pattern of things is not an effective way to detect purpose, as Ecclesiastes points out. If, on other grounds, we believe that there is an ultimate purpose, we can see science as a part of that purpose.
Kilograms and Santa Claus are human inventions, but given that they have been invented, they have particular definitions and can’t be arbitrarily applied to other things - a kilogram is not a pound; Santa is not the Easter Bunny or Spinal Tap.