Darwin's Dangerous Idea - Evolution and the Meaning of Life

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PART II DARWINIAN THINKING IN BIOLOGY Evolution is a change from a no-howish untalkaboutable all-alikeness by continuous sticktogetherations and somethingelsifications. —WILUAM JAMES 1880 Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. —THEODOSIUS DOBZHANSKY 1973
CHAPTER SEVEN Priming Darwin's Pump 1. BACK BEYOND DARWIN'S FRONTIER And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw tint it was good. —GENESIS 1:11—12 From what sort of seed could the Tree of Life get started? That all life on Earth has been produced by such a branching process of generation is now established beyond any reasonable doubt. It is as secure an example of a scientific fact as the roundness of the Earth, thanks in large part to Darwin. But how did the whole process get started in the first place? As we saw in chapter 3, Darwin not only started in the middle; he cautiously refrained from pushing his own published thinking back to the beginning—the ultimate origin of life and its preconditions. When pressed by correspondents, he had little more to say in private. In a famous letter, he surmised that it was quite possible that life began in "a warm little pond," but he had no details to offer about the likely recipe for this primeval preorganic soup. And in response to Asa Gray, as we saw (see page 67), he left wide open the possibility that the laws that would govern this Earth-shattering move were themselves designed—presumably by God. His reticence on this score was wise on several counts. First, no one knew better than he the importance of anchoring a revolutionary theory in the bedrock of empirical facts, and he knew that he could only speculate, with scant hope in his own day of getting any substantive feedback. After all, as we have already seen, he didn't even have the Mendelian concept of the
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Daniel C. Dennett
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Contents Preface PART I: STARTING I
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10 CONTENTS 3. Blocking the Exits 4
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14 PREFACE dozens of conversations:
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18 TELL ME WHY Is Nothing Sacred? 1
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22 TELL ME WHY it seems, by Darwin'
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26 TELL ME WHY 3. LOCKE'S "PROOF" O
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30 TELL ME WHY ideas in a human min
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34 TELL ME WHY Hume, who deftly exp
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38 AN IDEA IS BORN Natural Selectio
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42 AN IDEA IS BORN think this canno
Page 24 and 25: 46 AN IDEA IS BORN Did Darwin Expla
Page 26 and 27: 50 AN IDEA IS BORN Natural Selectio
Page 28 and 29: 54 AN IDEA IS BORN Processes as Alg
Page 30 and 31: 58 AN IDEA IS BORN Processes as Alg
Page 32 and 33: 62 UNIVERSAL ACID Early Reactions 6
Page 34 and 35: 66 UNIVERSAL ACID Darwin's Assault
Page 36 and 37: 70 UNIVERSAL ACID the hallmark of l
Page 38 and 39: 74 UNIVERSAL ACID The Tools for R a
Page 40 and 41: 78 UNIVERSAL ACID The Tools for R a
Page 42 and 43: 82 UNIVERSAL ACID Who's Afraid of R
Page 44 and 45: 86 THE TREE OF LIFE How Should We V
Page 46 and 47: 90 THE TREE OF LIFE Color-coding a
Page 48 and 49: 94 THE TREE OF LIFE Colorcoding a S
Page 50 and 51: 98 THE TREE OF LIFE Retrospective C
Page 52 and 53: 102 THE TREE OF LIFE bears only a p
Page 54 and 55: 106 THE POSSIBLE AND THE ACTUAL The
Page 60 and 61: 118 THE POSSIBLE AND THE ACTUAL for
Page 62 and 63: 122 THE POSSIBLE AND THE ACTUAL spa
Page 64 and 65: 126 THREADS OF ACTUALITY IN DESIGN
Page 76 and 77: 150 PRIMING DARWIN'S PUMP Back Beyo
Page 78 and 79: 154 PRIMING DARWIN'S PUMP Very well
Page 80 and 81: 158 PRIMING DARWIN'S PUMP Molecular
Page 82 and 83: 162 PRIMING DARWIN'S PUMP The Laws
Page 84 and 85: 166 PRIMING DARWIN'S PUMP quite str
Page 92 and 93: 182 PRIMING DARWIN'S PUMP Eternal R
Page 94 and 95: 186 PRIMING DARWIN'S PUMP ences, ho
Page 96 and 97: 190 BIOLOGY IS ENGINEERING Darwin I
Page 98 and 99: 194 BIOLOGY IS ENGINEERING Function
Page 100 and 101: 198 BIOLOGY IS ENGINEERING Function
Page 102 and 103: 202 BIOLOGY IS ENGINEERING revoluti
Page 104 and 105: 206 BIOLOGY IS ENGINEERING The Comp
Page 106 and 107: 210 BIOLOGY IS ENGINEERING tigation
Page 108 and 109: 214 BIOLOGY IS ENGINEERING Artifact
Page 110 and 111: 218 BIOLOGY IS ENGINEERING walls in
Page 112 and 113: 222 BIOLOGY IS ENGINEERING Stuart K
Page 114 and 115: 226 BIOLOGY IS ENGINEERING Stuart K
Page 116 and 117: 230 SEARCHING FOR QUALITY The Power
Page 118 and 119: 234 SEARCHING FOR QUALITY phine!) T
Page 120 and 121: 238 SEARCHING FOR QUALITY The Leibn
Page 122 and 123: 242 SEARCHING FOR QUALITY The Leibn
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246 The Leibnizian Paradigm 247 SEA
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250 SEARCHING FOR QUALITY ing trans
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254 SEARCHING FOR QUALITY The logic
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258 SEARCHING FOR QUALITY Playing w
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The Boy Who Cried Wolf? 263 CHAPTER
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266 BULLY FOR BRONTOSAURUS The Span
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274 BULLY FOR BRONTOSAORUS The Span
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282 BULLY FOR BRONTOSAURUS Punctuat
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286 BULLY FOR BRONTOSAURUS FIGURE 1
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290 BULLY FOR BRONTOSAURUS but only
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294 BULLY FOR BRONTOSAURUS Punctuat
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298 BULLY FOR BRONTOSAURUS Tinker t
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302 BULLY FOR BRONTOSAURUS Tinker t
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306 BULLY FOR BRONTOSAURUS conclusi
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310 BULLY FOR BRONTOSAURUS later ch
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314 CONTROVERSIES CONTAINED A Clutc
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318 CONTROVERSIES CONTAINED ence of
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322 CONTROVERSIES CONTAINED Weisman
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326 CONTROVERSIES CONTAINED Cui Bon
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330 CONTROVERSIES CONTAINED CuiBono
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CHAPTER TWELVE The Cranes of Cultur
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338 THE CRANES OF CULTURE The Monke
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342 THE CRANES OF CULTURE about how
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346 THE CRANES OF CULTURE Invasion
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350 THE CRANES OF CULTURE ln vasion
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354 THE CRANES OF CULTURE Could The
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358 THE CRANES OF CULTURE Could The
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362 THE CRANES OF CULTURE The Philo
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366 THE CRANES OF CULTURE The Philo
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The Role of Language in Intelligenc
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374 LOSING OUR MINDS TO DARWIN The
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386 LOSING OUR MINDS TO DARWIN Chom
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390 LOSING OUR MINDS TO DARWIN Chom
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394 LOSING OUR MINDS TO DARWIN Nice
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398 LOSING OUR MINDS TO DARWIN Nice
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402 THE EVOLUTION OF MEANINGS The Q
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406 THE EVOLUTION OF MEANINGS count
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410 THE EVOLUTION OF MEANINGS The Q
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414 THE EVOLUTION OF MEANINGS Two B
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418 THE EVOLUTION OF MEANINGS hadn'
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422 THE EVOLUTION OF MEANINGS get a
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426 THE EVOLUTION OF MEANINGS Safe
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430 THE EMPEROR'S NEW MIND, AND OTH
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454 ON THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY E Plu
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458 ON THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY my bo
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462 ON THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY the w
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466 ON THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY tion
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470 ON THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY term
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474 ON THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY Like
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478 ON THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY under
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482 ON THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY ble i
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486 ON THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY MIT:
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490 ON THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY Socio
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Can Ethics Be Naturalized? 495 CHAP
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498 REDESIGNING MORALITY Mill's ide
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^ 502 REDESIGNING MORALITY in court
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506 REDESIGNING MORALITY having mor
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510 REDESIGNING MORALITY Yet we do
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514 THE FUTURE OF AN IDEA In Praise
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518 THE FUTURE OF AN IDEA have all
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Appendix Tell Me Why Traditional Th
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