DDI
Darwin's Dangerous Idea.
Dennett's book is fit, let it infect your mind
Dennett is a philosopher who is interested in science. In “Darwin’s
Dangerous Idea”, Dennett works hard to translate key results from the science
of evolutionary biology into a form that non-scientists (particularly those
with a background in philosophy) can make use of. For the skilled performance
of such an important service, we have to recognize Dennett as a national
treasure.
“Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” makes the point that no idea is worth wasting your time on if it cannot stand in the cold light of the harshest criticism. You can read plenty of praise for “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” here, but what about serious criticism? How does this book stand up to its critics?
If you quizzed academic philosophers, working psychologists, and cognitive scientists you would find many who never read any of Dennett’s books and who would tell you that reading Dennett is a waste of time. This is the same treatment the Darwin himself still gets in some quarters. A large part of “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” is Dennett’s attempt to explain why Darwin’s revolutionary ideas on evolution have provoked such a response. The short answer is that evolutionary thought is “strong acid” the dissolves many of the ancient dogmas that some people try to cling to. The explicitly stated purpose of “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” is that Dennett wants to show why people need not feel threatened by the truth and power of evolutionary thinking. Of course, people who do not “get” Dennett’s presentation continue to feel threatened and try to prevent other people from reading Darwin, Dennett, and anyone else that threatens their comfy old ways.
In addition to the subject matter, Dennett’s style in “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” also provokes condemnation from academicians. Dennett dares to cross disciplinary boundaries and deals skillfully with the task of relating dusty academic pursuits to real human concerns. Many philosophers and scientists who lack the intellectual bandwidth to keep up with Dennett can only play the tired old game of calling Dennett a joke. This is the same treatment that Carl Sagan got for his masterful efforts in the service of humanity. If you are a professional philosopher or scientist who believes that “real ideas” are only written in opaque jargon and published in obscure academic journals, then do not buy “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”, its broad perspective and clarity of vision will fracture the narrowness of your mind.
In addition to the general criticisms of “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” that come from people who have never read the book, there are criticisms that actually relate to some of the specific ideas that are in the book. For example, Dennett explores the idea that Darwin’s theory of natural selection was not a detailed mechanistic account of biological evolution (after all, Darwin had no idea that DNA is the basis of inheritance), but rather an algorithm for producing adaptation or “fit” between living organisms and a complex environment. Some people do not like Dennett’s view of Darwinism as algorithm. As a biologist, I feel that viewing Darwin’s ideas on natural selection as an algorithm is both correct and refreshing.
There are two “isms” that Dennett makes use of in a most talented fashion: reductionism and functionalism. In philosophical jargon, “reductionism” is what you do when your computer does not work and you systematically search for the problem by investigating each component of the hardware and software. Functionalism is what people do when they think about something like a heart in terms of its function, without imagining that there must be something magical in the material of a living heart that prevents us from building a mechanical pump. As a philosopher who learned much from Wittgenstein, Dennett is not a Platonic Thinker, and Dennett’s style of philosophy shows just how powerful functionalism can be as a strategy for understanding reality in the absence of Platonism. If you are like many academic philosophers and have been indoctrinated with the idea that reductionism and functionalism are evils, then you should probably not read this book. You risk learning how narrow your education was.......Dennett might actually pull you out of the dark ages. If you can appreciate a philosopher who uses any available tool that helps us “carve the world at its joints”, then you are in for a treat.
“Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” does not simply deal with biological evolution in the narrow sense of Darwin’s time. Dennett also deals with the application of evolutionary thought to ideas and he has whole-heartedly adopted Richard Dawkin’s term “meme” to describe an idea that spreads through minds and societies. It is clear that the idea of evolving “memes” receives the same bitter opposition that Darwin’s original ideas on biological evolution received. If you want to see a book-length statement of this sort of sour grapes argument against evolutionary thought, spend your money on the book “Darwin’s Black Box”. Ever since Darwin published “Origin of Species”, critics have been complaining, “Well, you do not know all of the details of evolution, so I refuse to believe any of it. Get back to me when you have a real theory and all of the details have been worked out.” This know-nothing attitude displays a deep ignorance of how science makes use of theories that are the best game in town. Evolutionary biology and memetics are both young sciences in that they have just begun to scratch the surfaces of their complex subjects. It is silly to dismiss them as “handwaving” unless you have a better theory.
Dennett’s claim in “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” is that evolutionary thinking
is central to philosophy and our ability to understand our place in the
universe. Dennett’s effort deserves to be read and treated with reasoned
counter-claims. I predict that “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” will do well in
the game of “survival of the fittest”.
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