Word: dennetts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...opus on evolution, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Daniel Dennett is inevitably taking the second path; while he professes genuine respect for Philosophy and Meaning, he has no patience for those who cling to them rather than face the truth about evolution. And while he is sanguine about the prospect of reconstituting philosophy on the basis of Darwinism, his attempts to do so in the present book are far from reassuring...
...book, be forewarned, is not a layman's treatise on the mechanisms of natural selection. Dennett plunges right into the philosophical implications of evolution without giving a thorough explanation of Mendelian genetics or the process of DNA replication, so that the biology novice will no doubt feel a bit swamped from the beginning. Unfortunately, the situation does not improve as Dennett rockets through literally dozens of debates and subtopics within Darwinism. The sheer breadth of the book makes it better suited for someone already acquainted with the state of current evolutionary biology...
...feeling that Dennett is writing for his peers is reinforced by the fact that much of the book, including some whole chapters, are dedicated to taking on individual scientists who aren't pure enough Darwinian for Dennett's taste. His standard for orthodoxy is simple and strict: there are those who believe in "skyhooks," metaphysical interventions in human development which make us qualitatively different from all other creatures, and those, like him, who believe that "cranes," mechanisms which arise only from natural selection, can explain selection, everything that sets humanity apart...
...might expect, religious believers fail this test completely, and Dennett spares them no mockery. The scientific Philistine element will no doubt be overjoyed by passages like the following...
What is more surprising is that Dennett alsotakes on eminent scientists like Steven Jay Gould,Noam Chomsky and Roger Penrose, each of whomattempts to introduce some kind of skyhook thatwill put a halt to the evolutionary explanation ofhuman capabilities. The nature of Dennett'sdisagreement with his foes is often obscure, andthere is such a flurry of names and citations thatthe inattentive reader will probably begin to justtake Dennett's word for it. What it all comes downto is that Dennett sees Darwin's dangerousidea--that everything from consciousness to ethicscan be explained by the function of naturalselection over time...