Darwin’s Dangerous Idea

A book, subtitled 'Evolution and the Meanings of Life', arguing that natural selection is the best idea anyone has ever had and that its implications reach far beyond biology. Dennett describes Darwin's idea as a 'universal acid' that eats through traditional concepts, and as an algorithm: a mindless, step-by-step process that can produce design without a designer. He contrasts 'skyhooks', explanations that invoke design from above, with 'cranes', mechanisms such as sex or culture that build on what exists. Using the image of a vast design space and a Library of Mendel containing all possible genomes, he defends adaptationism. Much of the book argues against thinkers he accuses of resisting the idea, notably Stephen Jay Gould on punctuated equilibrium and spandrels, and Roger Penrose and others who claim the mind cannot be algorithmic. He then applies Darwinian thinking to language, memes, culture and ethics, while warning against 'greedy reductionism'. Gould and other critics replied that Dennett overstates the role of adaptation.

It is a forceful philosophical account of what evolution by natural selection means for mind, culture and meaning, and of the arguments against it.