Darwin's Dangerous Idea
Encyclopedia
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (1995
) is a book by Daniel Dennett
which argues that Darwinian processes are the central organizing force that gives rise to complexity. Dennett asserts that natural selection
is a blind and algorithm
ic process which is sufficiently powerful to account for the evolution
of life
including the complexities of human
mind
s and societies. These assertions have generated a great deal of debate and discussion in the general public. The book was a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award
in non-fiction.
(1991). Dennett noted discomfort with Darwinism
among not only lay people but even academics, and decided it was time to write a book dealing with the subject. Darwin's Dangerous Idea is not meant to be a work of science
, but an interdisciplinary book; Dennett admits that he doesn't understand all of the scientific details himself. He goes into a moderate level of detail, but leaves it for the reader to go into greater depth if desired, providing plenty of references to this end.
In writing the book, Dennett wanted to "get thinkers in other disciplines to take evolutionary theory seriously, to show them how they have been underestimating it, and to show them why they have been listening to the wrong sirens." To do this he tells a story; one that is mainly original but which includes some material from his previous work.
Dennett taught an undergraduate seminar at Tufts University
on Darwin and philosophy, which included most of the ideas in the book. He also had the help of fellow staff and other academics, some of whom read drafts of the book. It is dedicated to W. V. O. Quine
, "teacher and friend".
: "Analyze theory-building how we will, we all must start in the middle. Our conceptual firsts are middle-sized, middle-distance objects, and our introduction to them and to everything comes midway in the cultural evolution of the race."
The first chapter "Tell Me Why" is named after a song.
Before Charles Darwin
, God
was seen as the ultimate cause of all design, or the ultimate answer to 'why?' questions. John Locke
argued for the primacy of mind
before matter
, and David Hume
, while exposing problems with Locke's view, could not see any alternative.
Darwin provided just such an alternative: evolution
. Besides providing evidence of common descent, he introduced a mechanism
to explain it: natural selection
. According to Dennett, natural selection is a mindless, mechanical and algorithm
ic process—Darwin's dangerous idea. The third chapter introduces the concept of "skyhooks" and "cranes" (see below). He suggests that resistance to Darwinism
is based on a desire for skyhooks, which do not really exist. According to Dennett, good reductionists
explain apparent design
without skyhooks; greedy reductionists
try to explain it without cranes.
Chapter 4 looks at the tree of life
, such as how it can be visualized and some crucial events in life's history
. The next chapter concerns the possible and the actual, using the 'Library of Mendel
' (the space of all logically possible
genome
s) as a conceptual aid.
In the last chapter of part I, Dennett treats human artifact
s and culture
as a branch of a unified Design Space. Descent
or homology
can be detected by shared design features that would be unlikely to appear independently. However, there are also "Forced Moves" or "Good Tricks" that will be discovered repeatedly, either by natural selection (see convergent evolution
) or human investigation.
The first chapter of part II, "Darwinian Thinking in Biology", asserts that life originated without any skyhooks, and the orderly world we know is the result of a blind and undirected shuffle through chaos.
The eighth chapter's message is conveyed by its title, "Biology is Engineering"; biology
is the study of design, function
, construction and operation. However, there are some important differences between biology and engineering
. Related to the engineering concept of optimization, the next chapter deals with adaptationism
, which Dennett endorses, calling Gould
and Lewontin
's "refutation" of it an illusion. Dennett thinks adaptationism is, in fact, the best way of uncovering constraints.
The tenth chapter, entitled "Bully for Brontosaurus
", is an extended critique
of Stephen Jay Gould
, who Dennett feels has created a distorted view of evolution with his popular
writings; his "self-styled revolutions" against adaptationism, gradualism
and other orthodox Darwinism all being false alarms. The final chapter of part II dismisses directed mutation, the inheritance of acquired traits and Teilhard
's "Omega Point
", and insists that other controversies and hypotheses (like the unit of selection
and Panspermia) have no dire consequences for orthodox Darwinism.
"Mind, Meaning, Mathematics and Morality" is the name of Part III, which begins with a quote from Nietzsche. Chapter 12, "The Cranes of Culture", discusses cultural evolution. It asserts that the meme
has a role to play in our understanding of culture, and that it allows human
s, alone among animal
s, to "transcend" our selfish genes
. "Losing Our Minds to Darwin" follows, a chapter about the evolution of brains, minds and language
. Dennett criticizes Noam Chomsky
's perceived resistance to the evolution of language, its modeling by artificial intelligence
, and reverse engineering
.
The evolution of meaning is then discussed, and Dennett uses a series of thought experiment
s to persuade the reader that meaning is the product of meaningless, algorithmic processes.
Chapter 15 asserts that Gödel's Theorem
does not make certain sorts of artificial intelligence
impossible. Dennett extends his criticism to Roger Penrose
. The subject then moves on to the origin and evolution of morality
, beginning with Thomas Hobbes
(who Dennett calls "the first sociobiologist
") and Friedrich Nietzsche
. He concludes that only an evolutionary analysis of ethics
makes sense, though he cautions against some varieties of 'greedy ethical reductionism'. Before moving to the next chapter, he discusses some sociobiology
controversies.
The penultimate chapter, entitled "Redesigning Morality", begins by asking if ethics can be 'naturalized'. Dennett does not believe there is much hope of discovering an algorithm for doing the right thing, but expresses optimism in our ability to design and redesign our approach to moral problems. In "The Future of an Idea", the book's last chapter, Dennett praises biodiversity
, including cultural diversity
. In closing, he uses Beauty and the Beast
as an analogy; although Darwin's idea may seem dangerous, it is actually quite beautiful.
Dennett supports using the notion of memes to better understand cultural evolution. He also believes even human creativity might operate by the Darwinian mechanism. This leads him to propose that the "space" describing biological "design" is connected with the space describing human culture and technology.
A precise mathematical definition of Design Space is not given in Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Dennett acknowledges this and admits he is offering a philosophical idea rather than a scientific formulation.
as a substrate-neutral, mindless algorithm
for moving through Design Space.
While there are people who would like to see Darwin’s idea contained within the field of biology, Dennett asserts that this dangerous idea inevitably “leaks” out to transform other fields as well.
that does not build on lower, simpler layers—in simple terms, a miracle
.
In philosophical arguments concerning the reducibility
(or otherwise
) of the human mind, Dennett's concept pokes fun at the idea of intelligent design
emanating from on high, either originating from God
, or providing its own grounds in an absurd, Münchhausen
-like bootstrapping
manner.
Dennett also accuses various competing neo-Darwinian
ideas of making use of such supposedly unscientific skyhooks in explaining evolution
, coming down particularly hard on the ideas of Stephen Jay Gould
.
Dennett contrasts theories of complexity that require such miracles with those based on "crane
s", structures which permit the construction of entities of greater complexity but which are themselves founded solidly "on the ground" of physical science.
gave praise for Darwin's Dangerous Idea:
In the New York Review of Books, Stephen Jay Gould
criticised Darwin's Dangerous Idea for being an "influential but misguided ultra-Darwinian manifesto".
Gould was also a harsh critic of Dennett's idea of the "universal acid
" of natural selection and of his subscription to the idea of memetics
; Dennett responded, and the exchange between Dennett, Gould, and Robert Wright
was printed in the New York Review of Books.
Biologist H. Allen Orr
wrote a scathing review emphasizing similar points in the Boston Review
.
1995 in literature
The year 1995 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea is opened by Jimmy Carter....
) is a book by Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of...
which argues that Darwinian processes are the central organizing force that gives rise to complexity. Dennett asserts that natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
is a blind and algorithm
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
ic process which is sufficiently powerful to account for the evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
of life
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
including the complexities of human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
s and societies. These assertions have generated a great deal of debate and discussion in the general public. The book was a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
in non-fiction.
Background
Dennett's previous book was Consciousness ExplainedConsciousness Explained
Consciousness Explained is a 1991 book by the American philosopher Daniel Dennett which offers an account of how consciousness arises from interaction of physical and cognitive processes in the brain.-Synopsis:...
(1991). Dennett noted discomfort with Darwinism
Darwinism
Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....
among not only lay people but even academics, and decided it was time to write a book dealing with the subject. Darwin's Dangerous Idea is not meant to be a work of science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, but an interdisciplinary book; Dennett admits that he doesn't understand all of the scientific details himself. He goes into a moderate level of detail, but leaves it for the reader to go into greater depth if desired, providing plenty of references to this end.
In writing the book, Dennett wanted to "get thinkers in other disciplines to take evolutionary theory seriously, to show them how they have been underestimating it, and to show them why they have been listening to the wrong sirens." To do this he tells a story; one that is mainly original but which includes some material from his previous work.
Dennett taught an undergraduate seminar at Tufts University
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...
on Darwin and philosophy, which included most of the ideas in the book. He also had the help of fellow staff and other academics, some of whom read drafts of the book. It is dedicated to W. V. O. Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition...
, "teacher and friend".
Part I: Starting in the Middle
"Starting in the Middle", Part I of Darwin's Dangerous Idea, gets its name from a quote by Willard Van Orman QuineWillard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition...
: "Analyze theory-building how we will, we all must start in the middle. Our conceptual firsts are middle-sized, middle-distance objects, and our introduction to them and to everything comes midway in the cultural evolution of the race."
The first chapter "Tell Me Why" is named after a song.
Before Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
was seen as the ultimate cause of all design, or the ultimate answer to 'why?' questions. John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
argued for the primacy of mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
before matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
, and David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
, while exposing problems with Locke's view, could not see any alternative.
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
. Besides providing evidence of common descent, he introduced a mechanism
Mechanism (philosophy)
Mechanism is the belief that natural wholes are like machines or artifacts, composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other, and with their order imposed from without. Thus, the source of an apparent thing's activities is not the whole itself, but its parts or an external...
to explain it: natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
. According to Dennett, natural selection is a mindless, mechanical and algorithm
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
ic process—Darwin's dangerous idea. The third chapter introduces the concept of "skyhooks" and "cranes" (see below). He suggests that resistance to Darwinism
Darwinism
Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....
is based on a desire for skyhooks, which do not really exist. According to Dennett, good reductionists
Reductionism
Reductionism can mean either an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can...
explain apparent design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
without skyhooks; greedy reductionists
Greedy reductionism
Greedy reductionism is a term coined by Daniel Dennett, in his 1995 book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, to refer to a kind of erroneous reductionism...
try to explain it without cranes.
Chapter 4 looks at the tree of life
Tree of life (science)
Charles Darwin proposed that phylogeny, the evolutionary relatedness among species through time, was expressible as a metaphor he termed the Tree of Life...
, such as how it can be visualized and some crucial events in life's history
Evolutionary history of life
The evolutionary history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and fossil organisms have evolved since life on Earth first originated until the present day. Earth formed about 4.5 Ga and life appeared on its surface within one billion years...
. The next chapter concerns the possible and the actual, using the 'Library of Mendel
Gregor Mendel
Gregor Johann Mendel was an Austrian scientist and Augustinian friar who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the new science of genetics. Mendel demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance...
' (the space of all logically possible
Logical possibility
A logically possible proposition is one that can be asserted without implying a logical contradiction. This is to say that a proposition is logically possible if there is some coherent way for the world to be, under which the proposition would be true...
genome
Genome
In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....
s) as a conceptual aid.
In the last chapter of part I, Dennett treats human artifact
Social artifact
Social artifact is any product of individuals or groups or of their social behavior.Artifacts are the objects or products designed and used by people to meet re-occurring needs or to solve problems....
s and culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
as a branch of a unified Design Space. Descent
Common descent
In evolutionary biology, a group of organisms share common descent if they have a common ancestor. There is strong quantitative support for the theory that all living organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor....
or homology
Homology (anthropology)
In anthropology and archaeology, homology is a type of analogy whereby two human beliefs, practices or artifacts are separated by time but share similarities due to genetic or historical connections...
can be detected by shared design features that would be unlikely to appear independently. However, there are also "Forced Moves" or "Good Tricks" that will be discovered repeatedly, either by natural selection (see convergent evolution
Convergent evolution
Convergent evolution describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.The wing is a classic example of convergent evolution in action. Although their last common ancestor did not have wings, both birds and bats do, and are capable of powered flight. The wings are...
) or human investigation.
Part II: Darwinian Thinking in Biology
The eighth chapter's message is conveyed by its title, "Biology is Engineering"; biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
is the study of design, function
Function (biology)
A function is part of an answer to a question about why some object or process occurred in a system that evolved through a process of selection. Thus, function refers forward from the object or process, along some chain of causation, to the goal or success...
, construction and operation. However, there are some important differences between biology and engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
. Related to the engineering concept of optimization, the next chapter deals with adaptationism
Adaptationism
Adaptationism is a set of methods in the evolutionary sciences for distinguishing the products of adaptation from traits that arise through other processes. It is employed in fields such as ethology and evolutionary psychology that are concerned with identifying adaptations...
, which Dennett endorses, calling Gould
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....
and Lewontin
Richard Lewontin
Richard Charles "Dick" Lewontin is an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, he pioneered the notion of using techniques from molecular biology such as gel electrophoresis to...
's "refutation" of it an illusion. Dennett thinks adaptationism is, in fact, the best way of uncovering constraints.
The tenth chapter, entitled "Bully for Brontosaurus
Bully for Brontosaurus
Bully for Brontosaurus is the fifth volume of collected essays by the Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. The essays were culled from his monthly column "The View of Life" in Natural History magazine, to which Gould contributed for 27 years...
", is an extended critique
Critique
Critique is a method of disciplined, systematic analysis of a written or oral discourse. Critique is commonly understood as fault finding and negative judgement, but it can also involve merit recognition, and in the philosophical tradition it also means a methodical practice of doubt...
of Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....
, who Dennett feels has created a distorted view of evolution with his popular
Popular science
Popular science, sometimes called literature of science, is interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is broad-ranging, often written by scientists as well as journalists, and is presented in many...
writings; his "self-styled revolutions" against adaptationism, gradualism
Gradualism
Gradualism is the belief in or the policy of advancing toward a goal by gradual, often slow stages.-Politics and society:In politics, the concept of gradualism is used to describe the belief that change ought to be brought about in small, discrete increments rather than in abrupt strokes such as...
and other orthodox Darwinism all being false alarms. The final chapter of part II dismisses directed mutation, the inheritance of acquired traits and Teilhard
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of both Piltdown Man and Peking Man. Teilhard conceived the idea of the Omega Point and developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of Noosphere...
's "Omega Point
Omega point
Omega Point is a term coined by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving....
", and insists that other controversies and hypotheses (like the unit of selection
Unit of selection
A unit of selection is a biological entity within the hierarchy of biological organisation that is subject to natural selection...
and Panspermia) have no dire consequences for orthodox Darwinism.
Part III: Mind, Meaning, Mathematics and Morality
Meme
A meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena...
has a role to play in our understanding of culture, and that it allows human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
s, alone among animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
s, to "transcend" our selfish genes
Gene-centered view of evolution
The gene-centered view of evolution, gene selection theory or selfish gene theory holds that evolution occurs through the differential survival of competing genes, increasing the frequency of those alleles whose phenotypic effects successfully promote their own propagation, with gene defined as...
. "Losing Our Minds to Darwin" follows, a chapter about the evolution of brains, minds and language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
. Dennett criticizes Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
's perceived resistance to the evolution of language, its modeling by artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
, and reverse engineering
Reverse engineering
Reverse engineering is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object, or system through analysis of its structure, function, and operation...
.
The evolution of meaning is then discussed, and Dennett uses a series of thought experiment
Thought experiment
A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...
s to persuade the reader that meaning is the product of meaningless, algorithmic processes.
Gödel's incompleteness theorems
Gödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic that establish inherent limitations of all but the most trivial axiomatic systems capable of doing arithmetic. The theorems, proven by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of...
does not make certain sorts of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
impossible. Dennett extends his criticism to Roger Penrose
Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS is an English mathematical physicist and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College...
. The subject then moves on to the origin and evolution of morality
Evolution of morality
The evolution of morality refers to the emergence of human moral behavior over the course of human evolution. Morality can be defined as a system of ideas about right and wrong conduct. In everyday life, morality is typically associated with human behavior and not much thought is given to the...
, beginning with Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy...
(who Dennett calls "the first sociobiologist
Sociobiology
Sociobiology is a field of scientific study which is based on the assumption that social behavior has resulted from evolution and attempts to explain and examine social behavior within that context. Often considered a branch of biology and sociology, it also draws from ethology, anthropology,...
") and Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
. He concludes that only an evolutionary analysis of ethics
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
makes sense, though he cautions against some varieties of 'greedy ethical reductionism'. Before moving to the next chapter, he discusses some sociobiology
Sociobiology
Sociobiology is a field of scientific study which is based on the assumption that social behavior has resulted from evolution and attempts to explain and examine social behavior within that context. Often considered a branch of biology and sociology, it also draws from ethology, anthropology,...
controversies.
The penultimate chapter, entitled "Redesigning Morality", begins by asking if ethics can be 'naturalized'. Dennett does not believe there is much hope of discovering an algorithm for doing the right thing, but expresses optimism in our ability to design and redesign our approach to moral problems. In "The Future of an Idea", the book's last chapter, Dennett praises biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
, including cultural diversity
Cultural diversity
Cultural diversity is having different cultures respect each other's differences. It could also mean the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole...
. In closing, he uses Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast is a traditional fairy tale. The first published version of the fairy tale was a rendition by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, published in La jeune américaine, et les contes marins in 1740...
as an analogy; although Darwin's idea may seem dangerous, it is actually quite beautiful.
Design Space
Dennett believes there is little or no principled difference between on one hand the naturally generated products of evolution, and on the other the man-made artifacts of human creativity and culture. For this reason he indicates deliberately that the complex fruits of the tree of life are in a very meaningful sense "designed"—even though he does not believe evolution was guided by a higher intelligence.Dennett supports using the notion of memes to better understand cultural evolution. He also believes even human creativity might operate by the Darwinian mechanism. This leads him to propose that the "space" describing biological "design" is connected with the space describing human culture and technology.
A precise mathematical definition of Design Space is not given in Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Dennett acknowledges this and admits he is offering a philosophical idea rather than a scientific formulation.
Natural selection as an algorithm
Dennett describes natural selectionNatural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
as a substrate-neutral, mindless algorithm
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
for moving through Design Space.
Universal acid
Dennett writes about the fantasy of a “universal acid” as a liquid that is so corrosive that it would eat through anything that it came into contact with, even a potential container. Such a powerful substance would transform everything it was applied to; leaving something very different in its wake. This is where Dennett draws parallels from the “universal acid” to Darwin’s idea:
“it eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view, with most of the old landmarks still recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways.”
While there are people who would like to see Darwin’s idea contained within the field of biology, Dennett asserts that this dangerous idea inevitably “leaks” out to transform other fields as well.
Skyhooks and cranes
Dennett uses the term "skyhook" to describe a source of design complexityComplexity
In general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of complex systems theory. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are...
that does not build on lower, simpler layers—in simple terms, a miracle
Miracle
A miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...
.
In philosophical arguments concerning the reducibility
Reduction (philosophy)
In philosophy, reduction is the process by which one object, property, concept, theory, etc., is shown to be explicable in terms of another, lower level, entity...
(or otherwise
Irreducible (philosophy)
The principle of Irreducibility, in philosophy, has the sense that a complete account of an entity will not be possible at lower levels of explanation and which has novel properties beyond prediction and explanation...
) of the human mind, Dennett's concept pokes fun at the idea of intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
emanating from on high, either originating from God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, or providing its own grounds in an absurd, Münchhausen
Baron Munchhausen
Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Münchhausen , usually known as Baron Münchhausen in English, was a German nobleman born in Bodenwerder and a famous recounter of tall tales....
-like bootstrapping
Bootstrapping
Bootstrapping or booting refers to a group of metaphors that share a common meaning: a self-sustaining process that proceeds without external help....
manner.
Dennett also accuses various competing neo-Darwinian
Neo-Darwinism
Neo-Darwinism is the 'modern synthesis' of Darwinian evolution through natural selection with Mendelian genetics, the latter being a set of primary tenets specifying that evolution involves the transmission of characteristics from parent to child through the mechanism of genetic transfer, rather...
ideas of making use of such supposedly unscientific skyhooks in explaining evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, coming down particularly hard on the ideas of Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....
.
Dennett contrasts theories of complexity that require such miracles with those based on "crane
Crane (machine)
A crane is a type of machine, generally equipped with a hoist, wire ropes or chains, and sheaves, that can be used both to lift and lower materials and to move them horizontally. It uses one or more simple machines to create mechanical advantage and thus move loads beyond the normal capability of...
s", structures which permit the construction of entities of greater complexity but which are themselves founded solidly "on the ground" of physical science.
Reception
In the New York Review of Books, John Maynard SmithJohn Maynard Smith
John Maynard Smith,His surname was Maynard Smith, not Smith, nor was it hyphenated. F.R.S. was a British theoretical evolutionary biologist and geneticist. Originally an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War, he took a second degree in genetics under the well-known biologist J.B.S....
gave praise for Darwin's Dangerous Idea:
"It is therefore a pleasure to meet a philosopher who understands what Darwinism is about, and approves of it.
Dennett goes well beyond biology. He sees Darwinism as a corrosive acid, capable of dissolving our earlier belief and forcing a reconsideration of much of sociology and philosophy. Although modestly written, this is not a modest book. Dennett argues that, if we understand Darwin's dangerous idea, we are forced to reject or modify much of our current intellectual baggage…"
In the New York Review of Books, Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....
criticised Darwin's Dangerous Idea for being an "influential but misguided ultra-Darwinian manifesto".
"Daniel Dennett devotes the longest chapter in Darwin's Dangerous Idea to an excoriating caricature of my ideas, all in order to bolster his defense of Darwinian fundamentalism. If an argued case can be discerned at all amid the slurs and sneers, it would have to be described as an effort to claim that I have, thanks to some literary skill, tried to raise a few piddling, insignificant, and basically conventional ideas to "revolutionary" status, challenging what he takes to be the true Darwinian scripture. Since Dennett shows so little understanding of evolutionary theory beyond natural selection, his critique of my work amounts to little more than sniping at false targets of his own construction. He never deals with my ideas as such, but proceeds by hint, innuendo, false attribution, and error."
Gould was also a harsh critic of Dennett's idea of the "universal acid
Acid
An acid is a substance which reacts with a base. Commonly, acids can be identified as tasting sour, reacting with metals such as calcium, and bases like sodium carbonate. Aqueous acids have a pH of less than 7, where an acid of lower pH is typically stronger, and turn blue litmus paper red...
" of natural selection and of his subscription to the idea of memetics
Memetics
Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, originating from Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. It purports to be an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. A meme, analogous to a gene, is essentially a "unit of...
; Dennett responded, and the exchange between Dennett, Gould, and Robert Wright
Robert Wright (journalist)
Robert Wright is an American journalist, scholar, and prize-winning author of best-selling books about science, evolutionary psychology, history, religion, and game theory, including The Evolution of God, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, The Moral Animal, and Three Scientists and Their Gods:...
was printed in the New York Review of Books.
Biologist H. Allen Orr
H. Allen Orr
H. Allen Orr is University Professor and Shirley Cox Kearns Professor of Biology at the University of Rochester.- Education and career :He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Philosophy from the College of William and Mary and his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Chicago. At...
wrote a scathing review emphasizing similar points in the Boston Review
Boston Review
Boston Review is a bimonthly American political and literary magazine. The magazine covers, specifically, political debates, literature, and poetry...
.
Further reading
.External links
- Gould's response to Dennett's "neo-Darwinian orthodoxy" from the New York Review of Books, June 26, 1997.
- Dennett's response to Michael Rea's criticism.
- Danny Yee's Book Review of "Darwin's Dangerous Idea"