Natural Selection and Differential Reproduction
Philosopher Daniel Dennett talks about differential reproduction, which he says is the key idea of natural selection. With differential reproduction, some copies of the original are a little less perfect than others. Those that are less perfect tend...
Charles Darwin and the Problem of Continuity
Philosopher Daniel Dennett talks about the Darcy Thompson statement that "everything is the way it is because it got that way." Calling that a very fundamental Darwinian idea, Professor Dennett explains that it means everything either was something ...
Design and Natural Selection
Philosopher Daniel Dennett talks about Darwin and the notion of intelligent design. Rather than conclude, as did William Paley, that intelligent design requires a designer, Dennett applies Darwinian natural selection to the design process, arguing t...
Darwin's Dangerous Idea
Philosopher Daniel Dennett discusses the impact of Charles Darwin on not only modern views of biological evolution and nature, but on the evolution of thought and ideas, culture and science. According to Professor Dennett, all design processes have ...
Socrates, Darwin and the Essence of Things
Philosopher Daniel Dennett discusses the question posed by Socrates about what constitutes the essence of things. He notes that after Darwin and in the wake of modern science in general, the notion that anything has an immutable, ever-lasting essenc...
Natural Selection and Distant Ancestors
Philosopher Daniel Dennett talks about the conventional wisdom before Darwin that species were fixed eternally. With Darwin came the notion that species that may be very different now have a common ancestor from the very distant past.
God, Design, and Cosmology
Philosopher Daniel Dennett looks at arguments for the existence of God which are based on the need to explain how the replicating entities required for natural selected came to be.