Robert Wright has written an article about what he characterizes as a rather dramatic admission by Daniel Dennett, one of our foremost minds and also a prominent atheist, that life on earth shows signs of having been the product of intelligent design. This would come as quite a shock to those who have read Dennett's work, especially Darwin's Dangerous Idea. But the manner in which Wright announces this alleged reversal of position just sounds like there is at least some oversimplification going on, if not some outright distortion. Having watched the creationists announce breathlessly time and time again that this or that scientist "admitted" that evolution was false, or that they really just believed in it because it got rid of God, or that they underwent some sort of deathbed conversion, my BS detectors tend to be set on high when reading about such alleged changes of heart. And the manner in which Wright phrases things just sends up a red flag:
I have some bad news for Dennett's many atheist devotees. He recently declared that life on earth shows signs of having a higher purpose. Worse still, he did it on videotape...Dennett didn't volunteer this opinion enthusiastically, or for that matter volunteer it at all. He conceded it in the course of a dialogue with me--and extracting the concession was a little like pulling teeth. But his initial resistance makes his final judgment all the more important. People who see evidence of some larger purpose in the universe are often accused of arguing with their heart, not their head. That's a credibility problem Dennett doesn't face. When you watch him validate an argument for higher purpose, you're watching that argument pass a severe test. In fact, given that he's one of the best-known philosophers in the world, it may not be too much to say that you're watching a minor intellectual milestone get erected.
I can't be the only one that reads this as an oversell. Maybe I've seen one too many arguments phrased this way ("The eminent biologist Dr. Elmer Dinkley even admitted at a conference in 1965 that the fossil record actually supports the existence of God"), and I'm not saying that it's actually untrue at this point, but it just sounds fishy to me. The actual admission, as described by Wright later in the article, sounds much more like a sort of wishy washy "yeah, I guess if you start from this assumption, that's a reasonable conclusion" kind of statement than the sort of dramatic admission that he sets it up as:
Dennett's climactic concession may not sound dramatic. He just agrees reluctantly with my assertion that "to the extent that evolution on this planet" has properties "comparable" to those of an organism's maturation--in particular "directional movement toward functionality"--then the possibility that natural selection is a product of design gets more plausible. But remember: He has already agreed that evolution does exhibit those properties. Ergo: By Dennett's own analysis, there is at least some evidence that natural selection is a product of design. (And this from a guy who early in the interview says he's an atheist.)
I'm quite curious to see what Dennett's response to this. As a deist, I don't really have a stake in the outcome at all. I have no difficulty imagining that the process of evolution as a whole, or at least the conditions that allow it to take place, was a product of design. Indeed, that is essentially what I believe, though a bit more indirectly. I believe that the universe was created, and created with a set of properties that allow (not require or lead inexorably to) life to exist somewhere within it, which I'm sure Dennett would say is an unjustified belief and a search for skyhooks. So whether Dennett really implied or intended what Wright maintains has no bearing on my beliefs at all. I'm just curious to know if this really is an honest portrayal of his views or an unjustified implication being read into what he said during the interview in question. I emailed Professor Dennett with a link to it, though I'm reasonably sure he has already seen it. I'll be curious to see what his response is.
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Yeah that basically sounds like something any of us might say before the 'Creative Editing' process gets a hold of it.
Creationist: DS, don't you admit that life looks designed?
DS: Yes, and in fact I'd go further. It is 'designed', if by 'designed' you mean the end result of a long process which discards what does not work well and selects what does work well. I just think that this design process is unconscious...we call it Natural Selection. Now, if you want to argue that natural selection itself is the product of Intelligent Design, that a perfectly valid arguement to proceed with imo ... Have at it.
EDIT: DS, [A confirmed atheist materialist and Darwinist] don't you admit that life looks intelligently designed?
DS: YES! And in fact, I'll go you one further. It is designed!"
EDITOR: You can see what DS really thinks when he's cornered by the facts. More and more evolution apologists are agreement with DS; in private. Publicly, like DS, they're constrained by the Darwin Only Lobby much like Soviet Geneticists were constrained by the Stalin's endorsement of Lysenkoism ...yada yada yada
LOL, I think you're very right on this one ~DS~. This reminds me of when the creationists would take Gould out of context to try and argue that Gould backed up creationism (something they still do, if I'm not mistaken). It's almost better not to speak with these people. In fact, this is a policy that Dawkins has adapted. As he and Dennet know each other pretty well, I wouldn't be surprised if this article is currently a topic of discussion between them.
Having read the article and watched the interview, I'm a little perplexed. Dennett just seems to agree with what he said all along. Namely, life exhibits "design" of a sort that comes from purely material processes. And Wright doesn't seem to draw any conclusions beyond this, so I'm not sure what he's getting at by claiming Dennett has admitted something. Sure, if evolution has guided everything up to the emergence of intelligence, it makes sense that the processes of evolution are still at work once mind takes off. Wright doesn't seem to be saying anything other than what Dennett is saying, and Dennett doesn't seem to be saying anything new, or making any concessions. The only concession I can possibly see is that Dennett admits that since things are "designed" by natural selection, there exists the possibility of a purpose or designer, but immediately says that we have no reason to believe that. He definitely isn't straying out of atheist territory by admitting the possibility of something we as yet have no evidence for.
I've got a post about this on my blog, Doing Things With Words. The post is here. I argue that Wright is guilty of misrepresenting Dennett's views, and this comes about through equivocation on important concepts like design, directionality, goals, and purposes.
Two points.
1. Wright is making far too much out of a trivial issue. The directionality of life is evidence of design in the same weak sense that the facts cited by moon landing hoax theorists are evidence of a hoax. It is a logically possible explanation for the observed fact, but it is not necessarily the best available explanation or even a good explanation.
2. Wright is unjustified in going from "design" to "higher purpose". Earlier in the clip, Wright makes it absolutely clear that he is using "design" in a sense that does not necessarily involve intelligence, so that even individual organisms that are the result of natural evolution can be considered "designed". Dennett accepts this usage. He also states (previously) that he does not think there is any purpose higher than our own. So, for Dennett, "design" is quite consistent with there being no higher purpose. The "design" process which might (conceivably) have created the conditions for evolution could have been something like Lee Smolin's suggested process of evolving universes (which Dennett mentions in "Darwin's Dangerous Idea").
Having said that, if Dennett's statement was indeed the kind of very weak statement that I suggested in my first point, he could equally well have agreed that the directionality of life is evidence--however weak--for intelligent design.
I'm looking forward to seeing a clarification from Dennett.