Daniel Dennett - Darwins Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel C. Dennett is Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciencesand Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University,Massachusetts. He is also the author of Content and Consciousness(1969); Brainstorms (1978; Penguin, 1997); Elbow Room (1984); TheIntentional Stance (1987); Consciousness Explained (1992; Penguin,1993); and Kinds of Minds (1996).

{1}

DARWIN'S
DANGEROUS IDEA

EVOLUTION AND THE MEANINGS OF LIFE

Daniel C. Dennett

{2}

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England

Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York10014, USA

Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia

Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario,Canada M4V 3B2

Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, NewZealand

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex,England

First published in the USA by Simon Schuster 1995

First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane The Penguin Press1995

Published in Penguin Books 1996

3579 10 864

Copyright Daniel C. Dennett, 1995 All rights reserved

The acknowledgements on p. 587 constitute an extension of thiscopyright page

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subjectto the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's priorconsent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it ispublished and without a similar condition including this condition beingimposed on the subsequent purchaser

{3}

To VAN QUINE
teacher and friend

{7}

Preface

PART I: STARTING IN THE MIDDLE

CHAPTER ONE

Tell Me Why

1. Is Nothing Sacred? 17

2. What, Where, When, Why andHow? 23

3. Locke's "Proof" of the Primacy ofMind 26

4. Hume's Close Encounter 28

CHAPTER TWO

An Idea Is Born

1. What Is So Special AboutSpecies? 35

2. Natural Selection an AwfulStretcher 39

3. Did Darwin Explain the Origin ofSpecies? 42

4. Natural Selection as an AlgorithmicProcess 48

5. Processes as Algorithms 52

CHAPTER THREE

Universal Acid

1. Early Reactions 61

2. Darwin's Assault on the CosmicPyramid 64

3. The Principle of the Accumulation ofDesign 68

4. The Tools for R and D: Skyhooks orCranes? 73

5. Who's Afraid of Reductionism? 80 {8}

CHAPTER FOUR

The Tree of Life 85

1. How Should We Visualize the Tree ofLife? 85

2. Color-coding a Species on theTree 91

3. Retrospective Coronations: Mitochondrial Eve andInvisible Beginnings 96

4. Patterns, Oversimplification, and Explanation 100

CHAPTER FIVE

The Possible and the Actual 104

1. Grades of Possibility? 104

2. The Library of Mendel 107

3. The Complex Relation Between Genome andOrganism 113

4. Possibility Naturalized 118

CHAPTER SIX

Threads of Actuality in Design Space 124

1. Drifting and Lifting Through DesignSpace 124

2. Forced Moves in the Game ofDesign 128

3. The Unity of Design Space 135

PART II: DARWINIAN THINKING IN BIOLOGY

CHAPTER SEVEN

Priming Darwin's Pump 149

1. Back Beyond Darwin's Frontier 149

2. Molecular Evolution 155

3. The Laws of the Game of Life 163

4. Eternal Recurrence Life WithoutFoundations? 181

CHAPTER EIGHT

Biology Is Engineering 187

1. The Sciences of the Artificial 187

2. Darwin Is Dead Long LiveDarwin! 190

3. Function and Specification 195

4. Original Sin and the Birth ofMeaning 200

5. The Computer That Learned to PlayCheckers 207

6. Artifact Hermeneutics, or ReverseEngineering 212

7. Stuart Kauffman as Meta-Engineer 220 {9}

CHAPTER NINE

Searching for Quality

1. The Power of AdaptationistThinking 229

2. The Leibnizian Paradigm 238

3. Playing with Constraints 251

CHAPTER TEN

Bully for Brontosaurus 262

1. The Boy Who Cried Wolf? 262

2. The Spandrel's Thumb 267

3. Punctuated Equilibrium: A HopefulMonster 282

4. Tinker to Evers to Chance: The Burgess Shale Double-PlayMystery 299

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Controversies Contained 313

1. A Clutch of Harmless Heresies 313

2. Three Losers: Teilhard, Lamarck, and DirectedMutation 320

3. CuiBono? 324

PART III: MIND, MEANING, MATHEMATICS, AND MORALITY

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Cranes of Culture 335

1. The Monkey's Uncle Meets theMeme 335

2. Invasion of the Body-Snatchers 342

3. Could There Be a Science ofMemetics? 352

4. The Philosophical Importance ofMemes 361

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Losing Our Minds to Darwin 370

1. The Role of Language inIntelligence 370

2. Chomsky Contra Darwin: FourEpisodes 384

3. Nice Tries 393

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Evolution of Meanings 401

1. The Quest for Real Meaning 401

2. Two Black Boxes 412 {10}

3. Blocking the Exits 419

4. Safe Passage to the Future 422

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Emperor's New Mind, and OtherFables 428

1. The Sword in the Stone 428

2. The Library of Toshiba 437

3. The Phantom Quantum-Gravity Computer: Lessons fromLapland 444

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

On the Origin of Morality 452

1. E Pluribus Unum? 453

2. Friedrich Nietzsche's Just SoStories 461

3. Some Varieties of Greedy EthicalReductionism 467

4. Sociobiology: Good and Bad, Good andEvil 481

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Redesigning Morality 494

1. Can Ethics Be Naturalized? 494

2. Judging the Competition 501

3. The Moral First Aid Manual 505

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Future of an Idea 511

1. In Praise of Biodiversity 511

2. Universal Acid: Handle withCare 521

Appendix 522

{11}

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection has alwaysfascinated me, but over the years I have found a surprising variety of thinkerswho cannot conceal their discomfort with his great idea, ranging from naggingskepticism to outright hostility. I have found not just lay people andreligious thinkers, but secular philosophers, psychologists, physicists, andeven biologists who would prefer, it seems, that Darwin were wrong. This bookis about why Darwin's idea is so powerful, and why it promises not threatens to put our most cherished visions of life on a new foundation.

A few words about method. This book is largely about science but isnot itself a work of science. Science is not done by quoting authorities,however eloquent and eminent, and then evaluating their arguments. Scientistsdo, however, quite properly persist in holding forth, in popular andnot-so-popular books and essays, putting forward their interpretations of thework in the lab and the field, and trying to influence their fellow scientists.When I quote them, rhetoric and all, I am doing what they are doing: engagingin persuasion. There is no such thing as a sound Argument from Authority, but authoritiescan be persuasive, sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly. I try to sort thisall out, and I myself do not understand all the science that is relevant to thetheories I discuss, but, then, neither do the scientists (with perhaps a fewpolymath exceptions). Interdisciplinary work has its risks. I have gone intothe details of the various scientific issues far enough, I hope, to let theuninformed reader see just what the issues are, and why I put theinterpretation on them that I do, and I have provided plenty of references.