Darwin's Dangerous Idea

Evolution and the Meanings of Life

By: Daniel C. Dennett

Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell

Length: 27 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

In a book that is both groundbreaking and accessible, Daniel C. Dennett, whom Chet Raymo of The Boston Globe calls "one of the most provocative thinkers on the planet", focuses his unerringly logical mind on the theory of natural selection, showing how Darwin's great idea transforms and illuminates our traditional view of humanity's place in the universe. Dennett vividly describes the theory itself and then extends Darwin's vision with impeccable arguments to their often surprising conclusions, challenging the views of some of the most famous scientists of our day.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2013 Daniel C. Dennett (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Better read than listened to

I like the content, but many of the concepts are difficult to follow in audible form. Definitely worth reading.

Enjoyable-

I found this book very enjoyable. As this is not Dennett’s field he has to explain how he comes to his conclusions and who helped him get to them. This helps a laymen like me. He explains each section of the book very clearly and gives you an idea where he’s headed. It would be helpful to have read Dawkins prior to this book. It’s a good recap of the selfish gene, blind watchmaker and the extended phenotype.

Dennett is a philosopher and sometimes he can be a little long winded in his examples before making his ultimate point. The only truly annoying thing about this book is each reference cited is spoken out at the end of the citation ie “Dawkins 1978 page 52”

very insightful

I have a love for evolution and reading this has given me great supplementary knowledge that I can look back to and quote.

Brilliant - Do not overlook this one!!

This is one of the top 10 best books I read in 2022.
Dennett is knowledgeable and a great storyteller.

Human to the core.
Philosopher to the max.
Scientist translator and integrator.

This is truly brilliant.

Thank you!!

A "new" classic

Only 20y old, but already a classic, deserving to be "read" periodically, not just once! 1,5x speed works better, though.

Feel Smarter Listening to This

Darwinism relates to and impacts everything, and Dennett masterfully tells us how many people get it all wrong.

Imperial evolution

Dennett is a zealot for evolution by natural selection. I am with him in the first half of the book, when he makes an overall case for the power of evolutionary thinking, which has just begun to make its long march through the institutions and philosophies. I can even believe that his shots at Steven J. Gould have turned out to be pretty accurate – it does appear in the end that Gould may have skewed some of his biology to fit his Marxian ideology.

But the second half of the book left me cold. His zealotry goes way beyond the present facts. Contra Dennett, no one knows the extent to which the human language ability is a product of natural selection. The concept of the 'meme' does not in fact appear to be poised to clarify the conundrums of culture, history, and psychology. And the end of the book is distasteful whether the reader is religious or not. His parochial shots at Islam and conservative Christianity, given that he is so solicitous of the “memes” of the hegemonic Judeo-Christian and liberal ideology of his own culture, are likely to scare away more judicious readers than he will persuade.

My suggestion: read the first half and quit. Or, read the first half, then listen to the last 45 minutes; if you can tolerate the last 45 minutes, read the whole last half of the book; you may be one of the select few who can stay with the full-on Dennett.

Classic Dan

Dennett does an excellent job of taking Darwin’s idea of evolution and points out the implications of Darwin’s idea while pointing out pitfalls of misusing evolutionary thinking.

Interesting at the beginning, gets boring...

Right up front I will admit: I did not finish this book. I got about 2/3 through and stopped.

Daniel Dennett may be one of the "four horsemen" of the new atheism, but if so, he's the most boring of the four. He obviously idolizes Richard Dawkins. Everything Dawkins ever said is profound in the extreme. There's no need to read "The Blind Watchmaker" or "The Selfish Gene" if you read this, because Dennett quotes virtually every sentence in those books, and wastes no opportunity to tell us how profound and original each one is.

On the other hand, he absolutely despises Steven Jay Gould. He spends a majority of the latter half of the book outlining everything that's wrong with everything Gould ever said or did.

The first half of the book did have some interesting stuff. There was a chapter about John Conway's Life simulation that was very interesting. Some interesting stuff about memes (that I'd already read in Dawkins, of course, but still interesting). But then he decided to dedicate the rest of the book (or a very large chunk of it) to lambasting S. J. Gould, and to a lesser extent Noam Chomsky. Also, everyone who ever said a word in support of Gould is an idiot. I fast-forwarded to close to the end and he was still at it. At that point I called it quits.

I'm giving the book three stars mainly because I did enjoy the first half.

very in lighting

learned and thought a lot. as a grandson of a biologist thought it was very interesting