by Robert Wright

Oct. 8, 2004

Oct. 10 update appended below

This week I published a piece in Beliefnet about an interview I did with the philosopher Daniel Dennett for my video website meaningoflife.tv. In the piece I asserted that Dennett (long famously atheist) had said that, as I paraphrased it, “life on earth shows signs of having a higher purpose.” In other words: the process of natural selection may itself have been set in motion by a designer (in some sense of that word), and the ensuing biological/cultural evolution may be moving toward some purpose that we don’t yet understand.

Dennett, in statements that have gotten wide circulation on the internet, has since complained that my piece misrepresents the views he expressed in that interview. So far as I can tell, he’s wrong.

Before explaining why he’s wrong, let me sound one note of self-criticism. In the Beliefnet piece, I added the following elaboration: “I want to stress that Dennett isn't saying he thinks evolution's directionality constitutes anything like a strong case that natural selection was in some sense a product of design. He's just conceding that (a) to the extent that evolution exhibits directionality of the kind I've just described, there is at least some evidence of design; and (b) evolution does exhibit some of this directionality.” I also stressed that to acknowledge evidence of “purpose” isn’t necessarily to acknowledge evidence of divine purpose in the common sense of the word.

However, I added these important qualifiers many paragraphs later, after explaining the logic of the argument for design. So readers who quit reading my piece part-way through it may have been left with the impression that Dennett had renounced his atheism or had made a more dramatic concession than he in fact made (though I still consider his concession quite dramatic, given his previous position). In retrospect, I think I should have added these qualifiers higher in the piece. In other words, I am arguably guilty of “sensationalizing” the news.

Anyway, back to Dennett’s claim that I got the news itself wrong—that I “seriously misrepresented” his views, as he put it.

In an e-mail to me earlier this week, Dennett, elaborating on his charge of misrepresentation, wrote, “all I am granting in the interview... is that IF evolution exhibited the properties that embryogenesis i.e., the maturation of an organism exhibits (which it doesn't, as I've kept insisting) this would work to some extent in favor of your purpose hypothesis.”

In a reply to Dennett, I quoted stretches of the interview that showed the following: Not only had he not “kept insisting” on relevant differences between evolution and embryogenesis (sometimes referred to as “ontogeny” in the video clip); he had in fact spent much time agreeing with me on the similarities. If you want to read these parts of the transcript, see this excerpt of my e-mail to Dennett.

In reply to my e-mail, Dennett wrote, “I can see why you think you have me granting you your key premises, but I didn't see it that way, and still don't.” In elaborating, he slightly amended, or at least clarified, his position. He no longer denied that he had acknowledged various similarities between evolution and embryogenesis (or ontogeny--an organism’s maturation). But he said that the similarities he had acknowledged weren’t the kind of similarities that would qualify as evidence of design.

In reply, I noted that, actually, in the course of the interview, he and I had (a) agreed on one type of similarity between ontogeny and biological/cultural evolution that would constitute evidence of design; and (b) agreed that this similarity in fact exists. Namely: both ontogeny (embryogenesis) and evolution exhibit “directional movement toward functionality.” Here are the relevant sections of the transcript I’ve inverted their order to reflect the logic of the argument:

(A)

Wright: “So, I’m just saying that to the extent—I think we’ve agreed that observing, what is it, I guess ontogeny is the term, you know, the development of an organism, that it has its directional movement toward functionality by design, and that’s in fact a hallmark of design. Would you agree that to the extent that evolution on this planet turned out to have comparable properties, that would work at least to some extent in favor of the hypothesis of design—to some extent, to any extent?”

Dennett: “Ummm, Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah.

(B)

Wright after describing ontogeny, i.e. the maturation of an organism: “I would submit that if you step back and observe life on this planet in time lapse, including not just the evolution of human beings, but the cultural--including technological--evolution that led to where we are today, the process would look remarkably like that. And in fact you yourself in your most recent book, Freedom Evolves, you say--there’s a sentence something like, `The planet is growing its own nervous system, us.’ And it’s true—it looks like that.”

Dennett: Yeah, absolutely.

Wright: “And there is a functionality about it”

Dennett: Yeah, yeah.

Wright: “And you agree there’s been a directionality about it”

Dennett: Yes.

In summary:

1) Dennett accepts that directional movement toward functionality is a hallmark of design in evolution.

2) He agrees that evolution exhibits directional movement toward functionality.

It follows that he believes that evolution has at least some of the hallmarks of design.

Now, in my view, this closes the case, at least in the following sense: No reasonable person can deny that my interpretation of Dennett’s remarks was reasonable.

Yet Dennett persists! He’s written me a new e-mail suggesting that my reasonable-seeming interpretation is misleading. He makes two main points:

1) He now says he misunderstood something I said in the interview. Referring to section (B) of the transcript, in which I say, “And there is a functionality about it,” he says:

“I see that this `it' is ambiguous. I should have spotted it and

insisted on disambiguating it. I was taking the `it’ to be the nervous system of the planet, not the process that created it, but I can see that you probably meant the process.”

I appreciate Dennett’s acknowledging that in this case the error lies partly with him. But I really don’t see how his preferred interpretation of “it” gets him off the hook. The question, as I had phrased it, is whether biological/cultural evolution exhibits “directional movement toward functionality.” Well, if the planetary nervous system has functionality, and biological/cultural evolution has been moving toward this planetary nevous system directionally, then there is “directional movement toward functionality,” right? (By the way, Dennett and I agree that here “directionally” just means “probabalistically”—not “pulled by some mystical force.” We’re both speaking within the context of a materialist world view.)

2) Dennett’s second point is harder to decipher. Recall that in section A, above, I do two things:

(1) I note that he and I agree that the maturation of an organism “has its directional movement toward functionality by design, and that’s in fact a hallmark of design,” and;

(2) I then get him to agree that “to the extent that evolution on this planet turned out to have comparable properties, that would work at least to some extent in favor of the hypothesis of design.”

It seems obvious to me that by “comparable properties” I meant “directional movement toward functionality.” But Dennett now seems to be saying that by “comparable properties” he took me to mean “directional movement toward functionality by design.” (At least, that’s the only interpretation I can put on his latest e-mail to me: Here’s the relevant section.) In other words (so far as I can tell) he now says he thinks I was asking the question: “Would you say that if a process has a certain property by design, that’s evidence that the process was designed?”

First of all, if he thought I was positing an argument so blatantly circular, why didn’t he stop me and ridicule me, rather than pause, reflect on the question, and answer it affirmatively?

Second, if he thought that I was making a wholly tautological argument--that design is evidence of design-- then why did he write to me in one e-mail this week (in one of his more charitable moments): “You draw attention to an interesting avenue of argument that has not been particularly well explored so far as I know, but I don't think it is a winner.” What would be even “interesting” about this tautology?

Okay, so much for the issue of misrepresentation. I think the facts and logic are on my side, but decide for yourself. (And feel free to watch the relevant video clip itself.)

Postscript:

Before signing off, I’d like to head off an apparently tempting misunderstanding of the argument I’m making. At one point in this week’s flurry of e-mails, Dennett made a criticism of the argument that I’m pretty sure he’d take back if he had time to reflect on it. He wrote, “The mistake you are making is a sort of part/whole fallacy. From the fact that some of the fruits of the tree of life exhibit design, you cannot infer that the whole tree does.”

That is definitely not the kind of inference I’m making. If it were, I wouldn’t have to get into what properties evolution exhibits at all. I’d just say, “Dan we agree that organisms are designed by natural selection, right? Therefore, natural selection is itself designed.” And Dan would appropriately admonish me for my illogic.

Here, rather, is the actual structure of my argument: (1) What properties of fruits would add weight to the hypothesis that they were designed even if we knew nothing about how fruits had in fact come into existence—even if, to put a finer point on it, we had only one fruit to inspect? In other words, what are some hallmarks of design in a generic sense? (2) To the extent that the tree itself exhibits those same properties, that is (at least some) evidence that the tree itself is a product of design—since these properties are, after all, hallmarks of design in a generic sense.

I think Dennett was right when he called this argument “an interesting avenue of argument that has not been particularly well explored so far as I know.” I’ve been making variations on this argument for years now (including in the penultimate chapter of my book Nonzero, though that version of the argument is less elegant and, I now think, flawed). And I’ve been hoping more scholars would take the argument seriously. So I was delighted when, during our interview, Dennett started to take the argument seriously by affirming its basic soundness. I now realize that I may have cut off his further exploration of it by presenting this affirmation in such dramatic fashion in my Beliefnet piece. (See my mea culpa for sensationalism, in paragraph four of this discourse.) I’m very sorry about that. Dennett has made great contributions to the public’s understanding of both Darwinism and philosophy, and has a deservedly large following. I’m sure it would be fruitful for us to continue this dialogue, and I hope that eventually we will

Update Oct. 10, 2004:

Some of Dennett’s defenders have e-mailed to accuse me of playing “Gotcha”. They say I take two separate parts of Dennett’s interview A and B in the transcript excerpts above, note that they logically imply the existence of evidence of higher purpose, and then attribute that conclusion to Dennett even though he never states the conclusion explicitly. I want to stress that when I conducted the interview—and when I watched it, and when I wrote that Beliefnet piece—I had no doubt that Dennett had fully grasped the implications of what he said. And, watching the clip now, I still believe he did. From the moment, about four and a half minutes into the clip, when Dennett says, “But I think I see what you’re getting at,” he obviously gets the connection between the two questions (whether evolution resembles ontogeny and whether such a resemblance is evidence of purpose). And his awareness of this connection seems to me evident during the subsequent discussion; indeed, it seems to be the reason that his eventually affirmative answer to both questions comes only after some resistance.

I admit that I can’t be absolutely sure that Dennett was consciously aware of the conclusion that seems to me to follow inescapably from what he said. (And I’m not saying he’s lying when he denies such awareness; the interview happened months ago, and the mind is a funny thing.) My point is just that I attributed that conclusion to him in good faith.

Granted, I should have used less dramatic language in attributing this conclusion to him. Rather than saying in paragraph 3 of the Beliefnet piece that he had “declared” the existence of evidence of higher purpose, I should have said he “acknowledged” it. (Add this item to my “sensationalism” mea culpa, above.) Still, I want to stress that this sort of hyperbole in the opening of the piece is not what Dennett’s charge of misrepresentation is about. Rather, he is contesting my more nuanced presentation of his view later in the piece, including even the minimalist, “Gotcha” interpretation embodied in this paragraph of the Beliefnet piece:

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.

As I’ve explained above, Dennett’s claim that this paragraph misrepresented the views he expressed in the interview continues to strike me as wholly untenable. But I suppose I could be wrong. (My mind, no less than his, is a funny thing.) In any event, if he wants to elaborate further on this claim, I’ll be happy to post the elaboration on this website.

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