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Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life
In a book that is both groundbreaking and accessible, Daniel C. Dennett, whom Chet Raymo of The Boston Globe calls "one of the most provocative thinkers on the planet," focuses his unerringly logical mind on the theory of natural selection, showing how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of humanity's place in the universe. De...more
Paperback, 592 pages
Published
June 12th 1996
by Simon & Schuster
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Joshua Nomen-Mutatio
rated it
"If you can approach the world's complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things."
— Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell
"Is this Tree of Life* a...more
— Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell
"Is this Tree of Life* a...more
This book is purely about Darwin's theory of natural selection. IT'S NOT A BIOLOGY TEXT. It's not really about biology at all, but the larger, widely-applicable algorithmic process that happened to push forth original life. It covers a massive span of topics, most rather philosophical, including reactions to Darwinian thought (from Neo-Darwinist scientists, and others), issues in reductionism, possibility, 'evolutions' of meaning, 'evolutions' of morality, and a lot more. It's pretty unbelievabl...more
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This was by far the most annoying book I read in college. It isn't just wordy; it's bloated with needless
tangents and almost incomprehensibly dense passages. I watched an entire college science class misunderstand this for two excruciating weeks of debate and left thoroughly disappointed in Dennett's prose. It's simply too long and stuffy for its own good; and worse, for a 600-page monolith, it insists on simplifying things to "God did it by miracle" or "natural selection di...more
tangents and almost incomprehensibly dense passages. I watched an entire college science class misunderstand this for two excruciating weeks of debate and left thoroughly disappointed in Dennett's prose. It's simply too long and stuffy for its own good; and worse, for a 600-page monolith, it insists on simplifying things to "God did it by miracle" or "natural selection di...more
In this book Dennett makes an authoritative case against the necessity of what he calls "skyhooks" in order to explain life and meaning. Skyhooks are the deus ex machina of science, invented to make the case for human exceptionalism. Dennett's able to show that evolutionary theory can dissolve just about any argument in favor of skyhooks into plain, old-fashioned incrementalism.
The vast majority of the book is devoted to this topic; considerably fewer pages are allocated to...more
The vast majority of the book is devoted to this topic; considerably fewer pages are allocated to...more
A long and diffucult book, but well worth the effort. Here Dennett explores the implications of natural selection on other areas of philosophy. The material ranges far and wide, from human consciousness, morality, the evolution of theories of evolution, consciousness and morality.
The meat of the book is devastating criticism of attempts by philosophers and scientists to find attributes that are beyond evolutionary analysis. In particular, he does a thorough job of exposing the short...more
The meat of the book is devastating criticism of attempts by philosophers and scientists to find attributes that are beyond evolutionary analysis. In particular, he does a thorough job of exposing the short...more
As I neared the end of my second month of slogging through this book, I asked myself, "What keeps you going? Each night you read a page or two, re-read half of those, and then start again the next night."
The answer is that this book is so dense and well written that it deserves to be savored and thought about. For an evolutionary neophyte like myself (both in evolutionary time, and in terms of how much I know about the concept of evolution) the book has some fairly diffic...more
The answer is that this book is so dense and well written that it deserves to be savored and thought about. For an evolutionary neophyte like myself (both in evolutionary time, and in terms of how much I know about the concept of evolution) the book has some fairly diffic...more
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Comprehensive discussion of the theory of evolution
Daniel C. Dennett’s book is worthy of its subject matter. That is to say, beautiful in its essence, but complex in its details. Dennett is not trying just to explain Darwin’s core ideas about evolution or natural selection. Rather, he is trying to explain how evolution fits into humanity’s understanding of itself, life and the world. To do so, he has to explain his views on evolution’s context, its implications for human understandi...more
Daniel C. Dennett’s book is worthy of its subject matter. That is to say, beautiful in its essence, but complex in its details. Dennett is not trying just to explain Darwin’s core ideas about evolution or natural selection. Rather, he is trying to explain how evolution fits into humanity’s understanding of itself, life and the world. To do so, he has to explain his views on evolution’s context, its implications for human understandi...more
I hate to abandon a book before I finish it, but some books just force my hand in the matter. I picked up this book because I had always heard of Daniel Dennett, as he is one of the infamous "Four Horsemen of Atheism" (also including Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchins). I wanted to read some of his work, saw this book, and thought the title provocative.
However, the more I read, the more of a chore it became just to pick up the book. I don't want to giv...more
However, the more I read, the more of a chore it became just to pick up the book. I don't want to giv...more
A masterpiece of Darwinian philosophy. Dennett is very meticulous about showing how just about anything can be explained without needing an appeal to the divine or otherwise metaphysical. Darwin's theory is like a "universal acid" which dissolved anything it touched it the realm of science and philosophy to totally transform it into what we know understand to be a much more wholesome explanation of how design came out of chaos without the aid of mind.
In this tome, he reall...more
In this tome, he reall...more
In his wonderful, philosophical examination of the innumerable nuances of one of the great ideas in science, Dennett answers two profound questions that pertain to life: how could evolution have really produced us in all our intelligence and creativity, and what does such a possibility do to our understanding of meaning, beauty, and consciousness? Dennett makes a convincing case for the power of incremental change guided by the rigors of existence to create qualitative leaps in design complexit...more
Brian Steed
added it
So many facets of current evolutionary thinking are explored in this book. Dennett provides mental tools for thinking about evolution as a process of natural engineering, a notion most people sort of carry already, but without really thinking about the actual mechanisms at work (QWERTY phenomena, “good tricks,” “forced moves,” evolutionary vs. cultural traits, etc.) In addition to this wonderful service, Dennett gives us a peak into the current state of play among today’s Darwinian thinkers, i...more
1. Roughly 47% of Americans believe the theories in this book to be complete and utter bullshit at best, and at worst the work of the devil. That same 47 percent of the population that doesn’t believe in evolution also do not believe in the Sumerians or Dinosaurs. There is nothing that can be said to make them see that they could possibly be wrong about the world being created roughly 6,500 years ago, but that is fine because I believe the world was actually created 10 seconds ago, and it was ...more
Considering the subject matter, this book was surprisingly clear and accessible. Dennett's conceptualization of natural selection as an algorithm is well-reasoned and helps to clarify the overall issue. Dennett's arguments for how the acknowledgement of the algorithmic function of natural selection changes traditional thinking in a multitude of areas is equally clear and quite thorough, and he also does an admirable job of anticipating and puncturing counterarguments. He's also good about not...more
Dennett is a real expert on the subject. It seems obvious he has spent a tremdous amount of time reading, learning, and thinking about it. But i rate books only on how much i enjoy reading them. As for this one, well, i really liked the part of the book about Darwin, his ideas and the explanations of evolution, but at least half the book was apparently working on the "meanings of life" aspect and i just didn't get much of it and i struggled through to the end. I'd have given it a 4 or ...more
“Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” by Daniel C. Dennett is one of the better books on Evolution available. Dennett is probably best known as one of The Four Horsemen (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and Harris), i.e. atheists who speak out against the problems that organized religion causes in our society. Of the four, though, Dennett tends to stay away from the blood-boiling criticism in which the others sometimes engage. Instead, Dennett spends his time discussing the state of the science. This book is...more
Biologists try to answer questions beginning with Who, What, and How, but they claim that "Why" questions are better left to the philosophers. Dennett tries to take up this mantle, putting the impact of Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection through a philosopher's lens. Although this is a technical book (with a 25 page bibliography) he tries to make it accessible for the layman. He tries to use illustrative analogies. (I particularly liked his analogy to Conway's g...more
This book is an excellent presentation of evolution or as Dennett prefers to call it, Darwin's dangerous idea. Dennett calls Darwin's idea Universal Acid. An idea that in his terms is so powerful that cannot be contained by any limits. Throughout the book he tries to explain, brilliantly and successfully in my opinion, why evolution has answers to our most important questions about the world we live in.
Dennett contrasts between two central notions in the book and draws on this extensively...more
Dennett contrasts between two central notions in the book and draws on this extensively...more
DESIGN OUT OF CHAOS WITHOUT MIND
This book is not "yet another pop-sci book on evolution." It does not set out to convince the reader with a series of well-known arguments that evolution is true. Instead, it assumes you've accepted the idea and explores it as an abstract framework for understanding the world. It is the first and only book I've encountered that takes evolution as a worldview and not just a biological explanation of speciation.
I drew far too many wond...more
This book is not "yet another pop-sci book on evolution." It does not set out to convince the reader with a series of well-known arguments that evolution is true. Instead, it assumes you've accepted the idea and explores it as an abstract framework for understanding the world. It is the first and only book I've encountered that takes evolution as a worldview and not just a biological explanation of speciation.
I drew far too many wond...more
Dan Dennett is one author who has genuinely changed my view of the word. Till I read a wonderful short piece by him called "Where am I?" I had written off philosophy and took the view "if you want to know how the mind works, ask a neuroscientist". Dan is remarkably lucid on philosophy of mind, free will and evolution. He is both an "intellectual plumber" --doing that work that the best philosophers do, patching leaks in peoples thinking-- and a great communicator - ...more
Although the topic is very interesting and his idea that evolution is an algorithm is interesting, I don't see where Dennett comes off as the authority on evolution even though he is neither a biologist, a paleontologist, nor a physicist. The other major annoyance is his writing style which circumlocutes all over the place. Brevity is certainly a virtue. What could have been said in three hundred pages, is said in over 500 pages.
So what is he? A philosopher, which is where the book h...more
So what is he? A philosopher, which is where the book h...more
New fuel for my internal science religion battle.
The concept of crane versus skyhook. Some people, when they see something astounding, ascribe it to mystery, God, miracles: this is the skyhook type of explanation. Others try to find mechanisms, to link the phenomenon to natural processes: this is the crane type of explanations.
Implicit in both types is a notion of level: psychology is a higher level than biology, which is higher than chemistry, which is higher than physic...more
The concept of crane versus skyhook. Some people, when they see something astounding, ascribe it to mystery, God, miracles: this is the skyhook type of explanation. Others try to find mechanisms, to link the phenomenon to natural processes: this is the crane type of explanations.
Implicit in both types is a notion of level: psychology is a higher level than biology, which is higher than chemistry, which is higher than physic...more
This book has got to be the one of the best books I have ever read. It is a truly breath taking introduction to Darwinian thinking!
It's wonderful to read a philosopher who not only accepts evolution, but is positivity invigorated by it! Dennett paints a beautiful tapestry of what the Universe and our place in it is like in the wake of The Darwinian Revolution.
The book is filled with wonderful metaphors and analogies, just to name a few: skyhooks and cranes, universal acid, the prize for the gr...more
It's wonderful to read a philosopher who not only accepts evolution, but is positivity invigorated by it! Dennett paints a beautiful tapestry of what the Universe and our place in it is like in the wake of The Darwinian Revolution.
The book is filled with wonderful metaphors and analogies, just to name a few: skyhooks and cranes, universal acid, the prize for the gr...more
This is the most thorough (and readable) explanation of Darwinian theory ever written. If you have any doubts or questions about the impact of Darwin's idea, not just on biology but ethics, religion, or any other intellectual discipline, you should read this book. It is a bit too long, perhaps, at five hundred pages, but even reading a hundred of those are well worth the cover price. The style is light, the content intellectually dogged.
This is the standard book I recommend to people for understanding evolution, because it gives a convincing argument that evolutionary thinking is important in many different domains (e.g. the purposes served by using both binary and base-10 arithmetic), and because it provides a very good framework for thinking evolutionarily. Best response to "The Spandrels of San Marco" that I've read.
So far... I'm waiting to read something that I didn't know already. Dennett is long-winded, and I feel like many of his philosophical conundrums would be resolved if he knew some more biology. In other words, paradoxes occur because he's unwittingly made some assumptions about how the biology works, and it turns out that, although his subsequent arguments are all sound, they're totally irrelevant.
Kerne Fahey
is currently reading it
He puts the 'ism' in Darwinism. But somebody should. The moniker has unfortunately stuck; we may as well make the best of it. Yes, it -- Darwinism -- is like a religion. Specifically, it's something that beats the pants off religion at explaining the natural world. Anytime religions want to get out of that business and focus on spiritual comfort, it would be advisable.
Sometimes I feel like I give too many books five stars. Dennett's work here does deserve it, though. As an exposition explaining the ins and outs of evolution by natural selection, it would be a remarkable piece of clarity and lucidity--among the best that I've read. But it doesn't stop there. Dennett connects Darwin's idea of natural selection to a dizzying amount of philosophical views, both the incipient and those well in decline, and explains how natural selection, or neo-Darwinism, now ...more
Dennett gave me a lot to think about, from how Darwinian processes appear to behave "with intelligence", a close-up of various competing conceptions of evolutionary theory, and how evolution can help us understand how culture and morality evolve. It is a long and wordy book, and I think if he'd made it shorter it would have focused his ideas better -- the drawn-out arguments against Steven Jay Gould and Noam Chomsky were tedious -- but if you can handle it, it is still worth the ...more
Excelionally lucid book with very thoughtful arguments and counterarguments. The author is extremely well read and the list of references he presents is a great list for future reading. I enjoy a book which challenges my ideas and expands my vocabulary at the same time.
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"Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a prominent American philosopher whose research centers on 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 the Center for Cognitive Studies and the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Ph...more
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“If you want to teach your children that they are the tools of God, you had better not teach them that they are God's rifles, or we will have to stand firmly opposed to you: your doctrine has no glory, no special rights, no intrinsic and inalienable merit. If you insist on teaching your children false-hoods—that the Earth is flat, that "Man" is not a product of evolution by natural selection—then you must expect, at the very least, that those of us who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teachings as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity. Our future well-being—the well-being of all of us on the planet—depends on the education of our descendants.”
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11 people liked it
“One reader of an early draft of this chapter complained at this point, saying that by treating the hypothesis of God as just one more scientific hypothesis, to be evaluated by the standards of science in particular and rational thought in general, Dawkins and I are ignoring the very widespread claim by believers in God that their faith is quite beyond reason, not a matter to which such mundane methods of testing applies. It is not just unsympathetic, he claimed, but strictly unwarranted for me simply to assume that the scientific method continues to apply with full force in this domain of truth.
Very well, let's consider the objection. I doubt that the defender of religion will find it attractive, once we explore it carefully.
The philosopher Ronaldo de Souza once memorably described philosophical theology as "intellectual tennis without a net," and I readily allow that I have indeed been assuming without comment or question up to now that the net of rational judgement was up. But we can lower it if you really want to.
It's your serve.
Whatever you serve, suppose I return service rudely as follows: "What you say implies that God is a ham sandwich wrapped in tin foil. That's not much of a God to worship!". If you then volley back, demanding to know how I can logically justify my claim that your serve has such a preposterous implication, I will reply: "oh, do you want the net up for my returns, but not for your serves?
Either way the net stays up, or it stays down. If the net is down there are no rules and anybody can say anything, a mug's game if there ever was one. I have been giving you the benefit of the assumption that you would not waste your own time or mine by playing with the net down.”
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8 people liked it
More quotes…
Very well, let's consider the objection. I doubt that the defender of religion will find it attractive, once we explore it carefully.
The philosopher Ronaldo de Souza once memorably described philosophical theology as "intellectual tennis without a net," and I readily allow that I have indeed been assuming without comment or question up to now that the net of rational judgement was up. But we can lower it if you really want to.
It's your serve.
Whatever you serve, suppose I return service rudely as follows: "What you say implies that God is a ham sandwich wrapped in tin foil. That's not much of a God to worship!". If you then volley back, demanding to know how I can logically justify my claim that your serve has such a preposterous implication, I will reply: "oh, do you want the net up for my returns, but not for your serves?
Either way the net stays up, or it stays down. If the net is down there are no rules and anybody can say anything, a mug's game if there ever was one. I have been giving you the benefit of the assumption that you would not waste your own time or mine by playing with the net down.”
