Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

This fascinating, difficult book has a simple premise: evolution describes a colossal series of individual, algorithmic steps, none of which is accompanied by any specific intention or intelligence.

At first glance this proposition seems non-controversial but, as Dennett makes very clear, the implications of this theory being right are anything but: once you accept this fundamental premise, the ground under certain positions on a number of other hoary old philosophical chestnuts begins to give way:

* God - if there's no need for intentionality or intelligence at any point in the evolutionary process, then as Oolon Colluphid might say, "That about wraps it up for God" - there's no room at the inn (ahem) for *any* God (omnipotent or show more otherwise) as a creator of the universe, and since religious claims to ethical validity derive from God's status as both the creator and "ruler" of the universe, they too evaporate in a puff of logic;

* Mind/AI - if we evolved from organisms which do not have any form of consciousness, and that process did not itself involve intentionality or intelligence (until the arrival of human intelligence, which Dennett would describe as a "crane") then any account of consciousness *must* be wholly explicable in physical terms, and (though Dennett doesn't say this) it must be conceptually possible, with the correct technology (which we may of course never have), to synthesise not just the functional equivalent of consciousness, but actual consciousness itself.

This second point (but not the extrapolation) is the central thesis of Dennett's equally excellent (and difficult) book "Consciousness Explained". In many ways, I wish I had read Darwin's Dangerous Idea first, for the premises on which Dennett's account of consciousness are based are set out here in a great deal of depth. I don't think I fully "got" Consciousness Explained first time, so I am going to read it again now. After I've read a cheap and trashy thriller first, as a treat for being so good.

As you progress through Darwin's Dangerous Idea, having unequivocally lost the ideas of God and a "soul", a further order of things which are very central to civilisation as we know it start to collapse as well, most notably the ideas that there are external concepts of "right" and "wrong" at all.

Throughout the first three quarters of the book, Dennett is thoroughly persuasive, with the assistance of Richard Dawkins' wonderful idea of the "meme" (which is a great meme in itself); the idea which reproduces itself and mutates within and between human brains: Just as organisms do, "fit" memes find currency and reproduce with ease; and "weak" memes aren't able to occupy enough brains, and eventually die out.

It is analogies like these that display the power of the idea: the Darwinist meme has outgrown biology and is finding application (for which read: reproducing and mutating) in epistemology, ethics, sociology, economics and pretty much every other academic discipline when you stop to think about it. The implications for this, as a unificatory theory of everything, are immense.

Having said all this, Darwin's Dangerous Idea is not without its faults.

At times Dennett is needlessly provocative, and skirts dangerously close to ad hominem arguments in his dismissal of certain competing commentators, most notably Stephen Jay Gould. By being so he gives the impression of not being dispassionate (apologies, by the way, for the double negative, but I mean something different to "passionate"!) about the subject at hand. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it leads a sceptical reader to question how fairly opposing arguments may have been set out: unless one has read the competing works (and I certainly haven't) for all we know, Dennett may be rendering straw men or at least underselling the points lined up against him.

More curiously, having already picked fights with the religious, the spiritualists and the Marxist biologists, rather late in the piece Dennett wades into the ethics debate. He might have been better advised to leave morality for another time. His final two chapters purport to apply the "universal acid" of Darwinism to ethics. You would expect this to be a rout, but after noting (quite correctly) that between them such great minds as Hobbes, Mill, Kant and Rawls failed utterly to formulate any sort of method for adjudicating right and wrong, Dennett reaches not the obvious conclusion that there is no such thing (which seems to me to be the plain implication of everything the evolutionary theory stands for), but instead puts failures of moral judgment down to insufficient information at the time of judgment formation (one never knows *all* the facts, so one can't be expected to get it right) and ventures the suggestion that there is an evolutionarily explicable moral code, but we just can't always access it.

It is not clear why he even thinks this is necessary, especially since the very lesson of evolutionary biology is that it's quite possible for something extremely clever to come about by a concatenated series of not very clever steps. If this is enough to get humans from protoplasm to cave man, I couldn't fathom what Dennett's interest was in defending the notion that from cave man forwards, humans have needed some externally derived conduct code, especially when the one thing which is undeniable from recorded history is that that competing civilisations have never progressed their cause by being nice to each other. The final two chapters in my view can therefore be skipped without significant loss.

All in all, and notwithstanding these minor grumbles, I think this is an extremely valuable and thought-provoking book. show less

Darwin's Dangerous Idea could, in fact, be called Turing's Dangerous Idea, as this book is as much about computation and the algorithmic view of the world as it is about evolution. Dennett frames evolution as an algorithm that blindly selects genotypes based on the phenotypical performance of organisms within fitness landscapes. Adaptation occurs not only from this selection process, but, as complexity science has discovered, from constraints on the self-organization processes that determine morphogenesis and evolutionary stable strategies. This refinement of Darwinian thinking does not replace Darwin's original discovery, it enhances it.

The reason why this idea is labeled dangerous is because it completely flips around the previous show more philosophical and religious understanding of how nature is created. Before Darwin, the view was that of a top-down ladder, starting from God who designs the world purposefully, and continuing down to humans with minds, animals without minds, inert matter, chaos, and the void. After Darwin, this rigid ladder is replaced with a bottom-up tree that doesn't start with any mind designing things teleologically at all, but with blind and dumb algorithms ratcheting up complexity teleonomically. For most people this inversion of what seems like the intuitive natural order of things is both hard to fathom and shocking in its implications. Dennett calls this algorithmic evolutionary worldview a universal acid, it penetrates everything we see around us, spilling over into every area without being able to be contained.

Dennett's purpose for writing the book, as he states in the introduction, is to actually show why Darwin's idea is not really all that dangerous once you really understand it. People who fear that this idea destroys their cherished beliefs may have reason to find it dangerous, as it does invalidate the old traditional ways of viewing our world. However, fears that this new idea also necessarily implies a hopeless nihilism and a breakdown of society are misplaced, as long as you can overcome the initial aversion to the new order of things and embrace this way of looking at the world.

Oddly enough, the challenge that proper Darwinian thought and its implications faces today is not so much the outright denial of evolution by religious and anti-scientific people (though they are a problem), but the misunderstandings and misrepresentations of evolution by thinkers who believe in evolution but deny crucial aspects of it. One wrong perspective is represented by Steven J. Gould, who famously stated that if we ran the tape of life over and over again evolution would never recreate similar biospheres and societies that we have come to see today. Dennett takes him to task, showing how his idea of spandrels do not invalidate orthodox darwinism at all, that the algorithm of evolution will consistently find the 'good tricks' in design space and converge on familiar forms, even though historical contingencies make exact repeats of specific timelines untenable. Another flawed perspective is represented by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who thought of evolution in religious terms and wrote on how evolution confirms Christianity through an updated elon vital guided by the mind of God. Dennett again shows how this denial of blind bottom-up algorithmic processes leads to wrong conclusions. I must admit, however, that I think Teilhard's overall vision is more accurate in its overview of how evolution unfolds while being wrong in the details, whereas Gould's details are more precise and inline with scientific thought, but his conclusions are completely wrong. Lastly, Dennett puts to rest the criticisms of what Richard Dawkins popularized as the gene-eye view of evolution. People have either misunderstood what 'selfish genes' actually means or have misconstrued this idea to mean that since natural selection only cares about what is good for the individual organism, or more precisely, the genes of that organism, than that automatically implies that selfishness and individualism rules the land. Again, Dennett vanquishes these wrongheaded criticisms and defends the modern synthesis of neodarwinism, selfish genes and all.

Next, we get to the part of the book that deals with the implications of this dangerous (or not so dangerous after all) idea upon our minds. People naturally want to view humanity as separate from the rest of the world, a divine creation that makes us special and not just another part of nature. The reality s that we are a part of nature, evolved from and with the rest of the biosphere, but like Darwin said, there is grandeur to this view of life. We share a common ancestry with all of life on earth, one big tree of life that starts out dumb and blind and which eventually leads to culture and society. What sets humanity apart from the rest of the biosphere is our culture, a new evolutionary fitness landscape where memes, a term coined by Dawkins to represent units of culture, play out the evolutionary algorithm within our minds and within our societies. Our symbolic language capabilities, and the memes that arise of of them, while being based on and a continuation of our genes, give us an opportunity to transcend the biological limitations that genes set for us by default. This idea, again, faces challenges from scientists who are onboard with darwinism but deny its ability to explain language or higher cognitive capabilities. This perspective is represented by Noam Chosmky, who pioneered the study of linguistics but resists the idea that it can be explained through natural selection, and by Roger Penrose, who disagrees with the view that computational explanations of consciousness can account for reasoning and creativity. Once again, Dennett tirelessly champions the neodarwinian account of these ideas and shows how 'meaning' can be formed, language and creativity included, from the algorithmic process of evolution.

The last part of the book is devoted to morality and civilization, where the universal acid of the evolutionary algorithm takes the form of sociobiology. Dennett takes aim at social darwinists, seeing them as fundamentalists who think just because survival of the fittest is the way nature plays out, it should also dictate how society is run and what values to hold. This is the famous naturalistic fallacy, the problem with trying to simply base what 'ought' to be done with what 'is' in nature. Dennett shows how this extreme of simple reductionism to social darwinism as well as the reactionary extreme of using skyhooks to argue for moral relativism are equally fallacious. Sociobiology does show how our selfish genes have molded our bodies and minds, including our moral intuitions, and we must incorporate evolution into our understanding of morality and society, but it does not strictly dictate the best practices to follow. So how should morality be framed? Dennett shows how both consequentialism and deontology are intractable in practice, there are no objective algorithmic formulas for morality. Appeals to hyperrationality are bound to fail, and we cannot see the peaks of the moral landscape from where we stand today. What this means is that we must continually design and re-design ourselves through heuristics and feedback in practice, and thus grope our way up the landscape of morality.

I've read several of Dennett's books, but I found this one to be my favorite so far. The ideas are precise and profound. It should be required reading. show less

Dennett is a philosopher with interests in evolutionary biology and cognitive studies. Since I haven't read much philosophy and only a little of the evolutionary studies he cites, this book was a slow and sometimes difficult read. I do feel that he was persuasive that he is on the right track but he cheerfully admits that not everyone in the field agrees. Dennett argues that evolution is a done deal and that there are no 'skyhooks' (supernatural elements) needed to get from just formed earth to men asking questions about how they got here. He can also inject humor into his dialog with the reader.

We all know (or should...) about evolution and natural selection. But do we fully understand the repercussions of it? More than a century and an half after the bombshell 'The Origins of Species' exploded, it seems not, as if we were still dusting ourselves, shellshocked, and trying to comprehend. Daniel Dennett, here, just adds to the polemics, tackling not evolutionary theory per se (it has a long history even prior to Darwin) but its key driving force, natural selection. To him indeed, this is where evolutionary biology's most controversial feature lies in. Why?

First, because it completely shatter the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent God. The process indeed, that he compares to an algorithm, doesn't have to involve an show more intelligent design, since it's as blind as it is random. Such understanding, here, is key, since -according to Dennett- it's not only religious people who can feel unsettled by such view, but some scientists too, many still clinging to what he calls a 'skyhook'. What is it about?

He then goes onto the attack against the punctuated equilibrium hypothesis of Stephen J. Gould, and that he accuses of being illogic, if not relying on 'miracles' to explain when it has to face big, yet sudden, evolutionary changes. Siding with the gradualists, of whom Richard Dawkins has always been a defender, it's no surprise, then, to see him defending the selfish gene hypothesis, comparing here genetics to an acid corroding every other fields of study even beyond hard sciences. Does it matter?

To him, of course, it does, since he claims that we also find fallacious 'skyhooks' from philosophy (e.g. dualism to explain consciousness) to linguistics (e.g. generative grammar to explain language) and ethics (e.g. spirituality to explain moral). He targets, especially, Roger Penrose and Noam Chomsky. Interestingly, he again calls to the rescue the biologist Richard Dawkins (here, his views of what constitute 'memes') in very engrossing chapters dealing with socio-biology and its many controversies, either clumsy (E.O. Wilson) or downright immoral (e.g. social Darwinism).

As always with Dennett, here's a very dense book, requiring a lot of effort to fully engage with the topics at hand especially given that he touches upon a wide array of seemingly unrelated fields of research. Personally, though, and as much as I otherwise like Dennett's work and views (I'm an atheist too, and I too think that Darwin indeed killed God -whatever way you look at it) I couldn't quite reach a decisive conclusion as to this read. The fault lies not with the author, but with me: I'm not familiar with some of his targets' work and ideas, and so couldn't be sure whether he had points or, was being unfair and/or indulging in strawman arguments. Nevertheless, it remains a fascinating read for anyone interested in philosophy, evolution, atheism, and/or, even, linguistics. show less

I am far from agreeing with everything Dennett says, even in this book, but "if you read just one book on evolution...", this is my vote. He paints the picture in its starkest terms, and is very, very, very smart. Also a fine writer, and funny. He has a gift for side-stepping debates that have become jargon-laden. This means you have to think when you read him, because the terms of the discussion are not those of the last seven articles you read; you have to do the translating as you go. Dennett's distinction between cranes and skyhooks alone is a meme that will (I hope) live a long and happy life. Note though, he is a philosopher and not strictly speaking an evolutionary biologist. For my money this is perfectly fine, and Dennett goes show more out of his way to get his scientific street-cred, so it does not justify any slams of the book; but readers might want to know what the author's credentials are.

As to his polemics: Despite his anti-religious aniumus, Dennett is for the most part more even-handed here than in some of his later more expressly tendentious work. This is not to say that his engagements with religion, or ethics, or even philosophy of mind, in this book are of the same level of sophistication as his accounts of evolutionary theory (they are not); but he does a fine job of laying out the implications of a hard-core Darwinist position, in a manner that is solid, careful, and hard-hitting. As has been noted by other reviewers, Dennett includes some swipes at Stephen Jay Gould which might seem distracting to one not privy to the background. I suspect much of it hinges upon Gould's notion of "non-overlapping magisteria," the idea that science does not have the final say in matters of values, ethics, the arts, and indeed in metaphysics and religion; but that neither can any other discourse legitimately trespass on science's grounds. This means, for instance, that whether the Pope or William Jennings Bryan likes it or not, science has the last word as to whether the Earth rotates the sun or vice-versa, and as to whether homo sapiens and the bonobo chimp share a common ancestor; but that science has nothing to say about whether it is right or wrong to pick your neighbor's pocket or cut his throat. Dennett clearly demurs from the notion of circumscribing science's application (he argues that there is indeed a pertinent evolutionary ethics); and he more or less accuses Gould of hypocrisy, pandering to religion, and pulling his punches. I find this lamentable because it (to my mind) needlessly over-states the alleged incompatibility between the findings of science and those discourses by which we ask more ultimate questions; and there will be plenty on the other side to take him at his word. That Dennett does *not* pull his punches thus turns out to be a bit of an ambiguous virtue. But the force with which he states his position clearly indicates what Dennett feels to be the stakes. Even if, like me, you disagree, the book will force you to make clear to yourself what those stakes are. show less

Cranes or skyhooks? I'm an unabashed crane man myself.

Dennett explores the wider implications of Darwin's theory of natural selection. We get lucid summaries of the current debates on Natural Selection as a logical algorithm or philosophical approach, we are introduced to the mindboggingly complex library of Mendel and a quick tour of many of the biological challenges to Darwin's ideas and why they are now disregarded, finally a section on mind, meaning, maths and morality which is incredibly thought provoking.

Dennett's style is careful and deliberate with as much thought given to the structure of his argument as the style of his prose. This is fortunate as he tackles some areas of thought in which it would be very easy to lose your show more way. I read this book a little while ago whilst on holiday and would recommend taking it in in fairly big chunks otherwise you will yourself having to constantly recap his complex arguments.

In fact it's so good - you don't even mind that a lot of what he covers is actually philosophy.

Ultimately Dennett aims o show that Darwin's theory and everything it tells us about the world around us is life affirming and how it can help to bring meaning to life.

A cracking good read. show less

Dopo aver faticosamente raggiunto l'ultima pagina de "Il cigno nero", saggio inutilmente pretenzioso il cui autore sembra considerarsi l'unico agente razionale in un mondo di poveri idioti, ecco una boccata d'ossigeno.
Straordinariamente colto, ironico, preparatissimo, Dennet accompagna il lettore in un viaggio dove scienza e filosofia, biologia e spiritualità si intrecciano, dove l'argomentazione rigorosa si accompagna sempre alla voglia di capire e farsi capire. La sintesi migliore attualmente in commercio dei concetti fondamentali del darwinismo e delle loro conseguenze.