A review by morgan_blackledge
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life by Daniel C. Dennett
4.0
For those of you Game of Thrones fans, Daniel Dennett is like the George R. R. Martin of Darwin.
For those of you Darwin fans, George R. R. Martin is like the Daniel Dennett of Dungeons & Dragons.
For those of you Dungeons & Dragons fans, you're probably already familiar with both George R. R. Martin and Daniel Dennett, so I guess you guys (probably not girls, but maybe) are the intended audience of this review.
Before going any further did you ever notice how Daniel Dennett and George R. R. Martin look like twins separated at birth. Seriously, Google image search them and tell me I'm wrong.
In fact, if you slapped a Greek fisherman's hat and a black Members Only jacket on Daniel Dennett, I doubt I could tell those two apart.
I guess the easiest way to tell them apart would be their bank accounts. My guess is Martin is quite a bit more wealthy than Dennett.
In America you can make a whole heck of a lot more money writing about fantasy then dispelling fantasy (oh snap).
In case you didn't catch my drift, Daniel Dennett has made a career out of writing about Darwin. And to further elaborate, Charles Darwins dangerous idea is like the acid that melts crystal unicorns and rainbows down into a brownish green, smelly ectoplasm with bacteria in it.
Admittedly less fun in many ways than an ancient world of wizardry, craft and jealous, wrathful deities and demigods (Dungeons & Dragons reference). But really fucking clarifying and useful if you want to understand the way the world actually is.
Dennett and Martin are more similar than different though. Both have clearly spent too much time sitting at a desk (that was a fat joke), both are amazingly long winded (in the good way), and both are masterful at bringing their epically vast worlds to life via cool literary devices.
Dennett would refer to such devices as "intuition pumps" i.e. cool functional metaphors (like sky hooks and universal acid) that make difficult ideas suddenly accessible, and thereby more useful and generative.
Warning!
This book is long.
REAL FUCKIN LONG MAN.
Dangalang is it long..............
I'm really enjoying it and still, it feels too long, almost as if it needed a.. uhhh.....how do you say.....editor?
At least one whole (normal) book length section of this epically long book is a ridiculously lengthy and through defenestration (that's right, defenestration, look it up, I'm pretty sure this is a legit alt usage of the word) of Steven J. Gould's theory's e.g. Spandrals of San Marcos and the Panglossian Paradigm. And it's about as warm and fuzzy as a Red Wedding.
Oh my god. I'm so glad I'm not on Dennetts hit list. That man can talk ya ta death. Do not mess with Dan Dennett. He will pillory you with iron verbiage and pitch you out the moon door.
Dennett tosses a lot of ideas around in this book, but the central idea of evolution as a repeating, simple algorithm is probably the one that will really stick with me in the end. It's a cool way of framing evolution via natural selection. A mindless, iterative process that somehow eventually spins minds out of frisky dirt. If you're opposing that dangerous idea, than I got news for ya. Winter is coming.
For those of you Darwin fans, George R. R. Martin is like the Daniel Dennett of Dungeons & Dragons.
For those of you Dungeons & Dragons fans, you're probably already familiar with both George R. R. Martin and Daniel Dennett, so I guess you guys (probably not girls, but maybe) are the intended audience of this review.
Before going any further did you ever notice how Daniel Dennett and George R. R. Martin look like twins separated at birth. Seriously, Google image search them and tell me I'm wrong.
In fact, if you slapped a Greek fisherman's hat and a black Members Only jacket on Daniel Dennett, I doubt I could tell those two apart.
I guess the easiest way to tell them apart would be their bank accounts. My guess is Martin is quite a bit more wealthy than Dennett.
In America you can make a whole heck of a lot more money writing about fantasy then dispelling fantasy (oh snap).
In case you didn't catch my drift, Daniel Dennett has made a career out of writing about Darwin. And to further elaborate, Charles Darwins dangerous idea is like the acid that melts crystal unicorns and rainbows down into a brownish green, smelly ectoplasm with bacteria in it.
Admittedly less fun in many ways than an ancient world of wizardry, craft and jealous, wrathful deities and demigods (Dungeons & Dragons reference). But really fucking clarifying and useful if you want to understand the way the world actually is.
Dennett and Martin are more similar than different though. Both have clearly spent too much time sitting at a desk (that was a fat joke), both are amazingly long winded (in the good way), and both are masterful at bringing their epically vast worlds to life via cool literary devices.
Dennett would refer to such devices as "intuition pumps" i.e. cool functional metaphors (like sky hooks and universal acid) that make difficult ideas suddenly accessible, and thereby more useful and generative.
Warning!
This book is long.
REAL FUCKIN LONG MAN.
Dangalang is it long..............
I'm really enjoying it and still, it feels too long, almost as if it needed a.. uhhh.....how do you say.....editor?
At least one whole (normal) book length section of this epically long book is a ridiculously lengthy and through defenestration (that's right, defenestration, look it up, I'm pretty sure this is a legit alt usage of the word) of Steven J. Gould's theory's e.g. Spandrals of San Marcos and the Panglossian Paradigm. And it's about as warm and fuzzy as a Red Wedding.
Oh my god. I'm so glad I'm not on Dennetts hit list. That man can talk ya ta death. Do not mess with Dan Dennett. He will pillory you with iron verbiage and pitch you out the moon door.
Dennett tosses a lot of ideas around in this book, but the central idea of evolution as a repeating, simple algorithm is probably the one that will really stick with me in the end. It's a cool way of framing evolution via natural selection. A mindless, iterative process that somehow eventually spins minds out of frisky dirt. If you're opposing that dangerous idea, than I got news for ya. Winter is coming.