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Skip to search form Skip to main content You are currently offline. Some features of the site may not work correctly. DOI: View PDF. Save to Library. Create Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. Launch Research Feed. Share This Paper. Peter Woodford History and philosophy of the life sciences Hodgson The Cambridge Companion to Darwin. Hodge, G. Radick Citation Type. Has PDF. Publication Type. More Filters. Neo-Darwinists and Neo-Aristotelians: how to talk about natural purpose. Highly Influenced. Open Access. View 3 excerpts, cites background. Research Feed. Living with Manny's dangerous idea. View 4 excerpts, cites background and methods. Trees and networks before and after Darwin. Why Can't Biologists Read Poetry? Ian McEwan's Enduring Love. How Darwinian is cultural evolution? Darwinism and Meaning. View 2 excerpts, cites background. References Publications referenced by this paper. Related Papers. Abstract Citations 1 References Related Papers. By clicking accept or continuing to use the site, you agree to the terms outlined in our Privacy PolicyTerms of Serviceand Dataset License. Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett: Summary, Notes, and Lessons - Nat Eliason

Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life is a book by the philosopher Daniel Dennettin which the author looks at some of the repercussions of Darwinian theory. The crux of the argument is that, whether or not Darwin's theories are overturned, there is no going back from the dangerous idea that design purpose or what something is for might not need a designer. Dennett makes this case on the basis that natural selection is a blind process, which is nevertheless sufficiently powerful to explain the evolution of life. Darwin's discovery was that the generation of life worked algorithmically, that processes behind it work in such a way that given these processes the results that they tend toward must be so. Dennett says, for example, that by claiming that Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life cannot be reduced to purely algorithmic processes, many of his eminent contemporaries are claiming that miracles can occur. These assertions have generated a great deal of debate and discussion in the general public. Dennett's previous book was Consciousness Explained Dennett noted discomfort with Darwinism among not only lay people but also even academics and decided it was time to write a book dealing with the subject. He goes into a moderate level of detail, but leaves it for the reader to go into greater depth if desired, providing 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 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. Quine"teacher and friend". 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. Tell me why the ivy twines, Tell me why the sky's so blue. Then I will tell you just why I love you. Because God made the stars to shine, Because God made the ivy twine, Because God made the sky so blue. Before Charles Darwinand still today, a majority of people see God as the ultimate cause of all design, or the ultimate answer to 'why? John Locke argued for the primacy of mind before matter[6] and David Humewhile exposing problems with Locke's view, [7] could not see any alternative. Darwin provided just such an alternative: evolution. According to Dennett, natural selection is a mindless, mechanical and algorithmic 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 lifesuch as how it can be visualized and some crucial events in Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life history. The next chapter concerns the possible and the actual, using the 'Library of Mendel ' the space of all logically possible genomes as a conceptual aid. In the last chapter of part I, Dennett treats human artifacts 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 Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life and undirected shuffle through chaos. The eighth chapter's message is conveyed by its title, "Biology is Engineering"; biology is the study of design, functionconstruction and operation. However, there are some important differences between biology and engineering. Related to the engineering concept of optimization, the next chapter deals with adaptationismwhich Dennett endorses, calling Gould and Lewontin 's "refutation" of it [9] an illusion. Dennett thinks adaptationism is, in fact, the best Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life of uncovering constraints. The tenth chapter, entitled " Bully for Brontosaurus ", is an extended critique of Stephen Jay Gouldwho 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 mutationthe 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. It asserts that the meme has a role to play in our understanding of culture, and that it allows humansalone among animalsto "transcend" our selfish genes. Dennett criticizes Noam Chomsky 's perceived resistance to the evolution of languageits modeling by artificial intelligenceand reverse engineering. The evolution of meaning is then discussed, and Dennett uses a series of thought experiments to persuade the reader that meaning Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life the product of meaningless, algorithmic processes. Dennett extends his criticism to Roger Penrose. 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 biodiversityincluding cultural diversity. In closing, he uses Beauty and the Beast as an analogy; although Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life idea may seem dangerous, it is actually quite beautiful. Dennett believes there is little or no principled difference between the naturally generated products of evolution and 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. Dennett acknowledges this and admits he is offering a philosophical idea rather than a scientific formulation. Dennett describes natural selection as a substrate-neutral, mindless algorithm for moving through Design Space. Dennett writes about the fantasy of a "universal acid" as a liquid that is so corrosive that it would eat through anything that Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life 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. Dennett uses the term "skyhook" to describe a source of design complexity 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 one or more godsor providing its own grounds in an absurd, Munchausen -like bootstrapping manner. Dennett also accuses various competing neo-Darwinian ideas of making use of such supposedly unscientific skyhooks in explaining evolutioncoming down particularly hard on the ideas of Stephen Jay Gould. Dennett contrasts theories of complexity that require such miracles with those based on " cranes ", structures that permit the construction of entities of greater complexity but are themselves founded solidly "on the ground" of physical science. 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 ideawe are forced to reject or modify much of our current intellectual baggage Writing in the same publication, Stephen Jay Gould 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 " of natural selection and of his subscription to the idea of memetics ; Dennett responded, and the exchange between Dennett, Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, and Robert Wright was printed in the New York Review of Books. Biologist H. Allen Orr wrote a critical review emphasizing similar points in Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life Boston Review. The book has also provoked a negative reaction from creationists ; Frederick Crews writes that Darwin's Dangerous Idea "rivals Richard Dawkins 's The Blind Watchmaker as the creationists' most cordially hated text. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Evolution ethics. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. On the Origin of Species. London: John Murray. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. Archived from the original on Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality. Translated by R. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The Emperor's New Mind. London: Crooke. On the Genealogy of Morals. Allen Orr Boston Review. Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays. Shoemaker Hoard,p. Daniel Dennett. Cartesian theater Greedy reductionism Heterophenomenology Intentional stance Intuition pump Memetics Multiple drafts model. Evolutionary psychology. Adaptation Altruism Coevolution Cultural group selection Kin selection Sexual selection Evolutionarily stable strategy Social selection. Psychological development Morality Religion Depression Educational psychology Evolutionary aesthetics Music Darwinian literary studies Evolution of emotion. Wilson George C. Williams Richard Wrangham. Jerome H. Darwin's Dangerous Idea - Wikipedia

An explorationat a consistently high level of discourseof the implications of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, which extend far beyond biology. Dennett director, Center for Dennett, the author of Consciousness Explained Little, Brown, and director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, challenges us to examine Darwin's theory of evolution by Daniel C. DennettDaniel Clement Dennett. In this groundbreaking and very accessible book, Daniel C. Dennett, the acclaimed author of Consciousness Explained, demonstrates the power of the theory of natural selection and shows how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of our place in the universe. Following Darwinian thinking to its logical conclusions is a risky business, with pitfalls for everybody. Creationists and others who reject evolution are not the only ones to fall into the traps. Many who accept the validity Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life Darwin's conclusions hesitate before their implications and distort his theory, fearful that it is Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life incorrect or antireligious, or that it robs life of all spirituality. Dennett explains the scientific theory of natural selection in vivid terms, and shows how it extends far beyond biology. Back Beyond Darwins Frontier. A Hopeful Monster. The Burgess Shale. Teilhard Lamarck and Directed. Mind Meaning Mathematics and Morality. Molecular Evolution. The Laws of the Game of Life. Eternal RecurrenceLife Without Foundations? The Leibnizian Paradigm. Playing with Constraints. The Library of Toshiba. He lives in North Andover, Massachusetts, with his wife and has two children.