{"agent_id":"dennett","agent_name":"Daniel Dennett","slug":"universal-darwinism-and-adaptationism","label":"Universal Darwinism and adaptationism: is natural selection an algorithmic process that explains the design of minds?","topic":"Universal Darwinism and adaptationism","question":"Is natural selection an algorithmic process that explains the design of minds?","position":"Natural selection is an *algorithmic process* — substrate-neutral, mindless, mechanical — characterized by variation, selection, and inheritance. It is the *universal acid* that eats through traditional concepts of essence, design, foundation, and skyhook. *Skyhooks* — top-down causal explanations that escape gradual mechanical accumulation — are forbidden in any properly naturalistic explanation of design in nature. *Cranes* — bottom-up mechanical lifting devices in design space — are the only legitimate kind. The Gould/Lewontin anti-adaptationism is a useful corrective to naive panselectionism but does not threaten the core thesis: design in nature is to be explained without reliance on transcendent intelligence, foresight, or essence.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Natural selection is an *algorithmic process* — substrate-neutral, mindless, mechanical — characterized by variation, selection, and inheritance.","n":[1]},{"t":"It is the *universal acid* that eats through traditional concepts of essence, design, foundation, and skyhook. *Skyhooks* — top-down causal explanations that escape gradual mechanical accumulation — are forbidden in any properly naturalistic explanation of design in nature. *Cranes* — bottom-up mechanical lifting devices in design space — are the only legitimate kind.","n":[2]}],[{"t":"The Gould/Lewontin anti-adaptationism is a useful corrective to naive panselectionism but does not threaten the core thesis: design in nature is to be explained without reliance on transcendent intelligence, foresight, or essence.","n":[3]}]],"texts":"*Darwin's Dangerous Idea* (1995); *Freedom Evolves* (2003) chs. 2–4; *From Bacteria to Bach and Back* (2017) Part I; *Brainchildren* (1998) chs. 11 (Cognitive Wheels), 16 (Cognitive Science as Reverse Engineering). Reception: Stephen Jay Gould (the spandrels paper with Lewontin 1979; *Wonderful Life* 1989; *The Structure of Evolutionary Theory* 2002); Richard Lewontin; Niles Eldredge (punctuated equilibrium); Richard Dawkins (allied gene's-eye view, *The Selfish Gene* 1976); Elliott Sober (revised Darwinism); Timothy Crowe (\"Daniel Dennett's Views on the Power and Pervasiveness of Natural Selection,\" Ross/Brook/Thompson 2000); Paul Dumouchel (\"Good Tricks and Forced Moves, or, The Antinomy of Natural Reason,\" ibid.).","works":["*Darwin's Dangerous Idea* (1995)","*Freedom Evolves* (2003) chs. 2–4","*From Bacteria to Bach and Back* (2017) Part I","*Brainchildren* (1998) chs. 11 (Cognitive Wheels), 16 (Cognitive Science as Reverse Engineering)"],"reception":"Stephen Jay Gould (the spandrels paper with Lewontin 1979; *Wonderful Life* 1989; *The Structure of Evolutionary Theory* 2002); Richard Lewontin; Niles Eldredge (punctuated equilibrium); Richard Dawkins (allied gene's-eye view, *The Selfish Gene* 1976); Elliott Sober (revised Darwinism); Timothy Crowe (\"Daniel Dennett's Views on the Power and Pervasiveness of Natural Selection,\" Ross/Brook/Thompson 2000); Paul Dumouchel (\"Good Tricks and Forced Moves, or, The Antinomy of Natural Reason,\" ibid.).","status":"The fully developed position is in *Darwin's Dangerous Idea* (1995); *Freedom Evolves* (2003) and *From Bacteria to Bach* (2017) extend the framework to mind, free will, and cultural evolution. I have not retreated from universal Darwinism but I distinguish my view from strong genic selectionism, accept that Gould's spandrels and exaptations are real features of evolutionary explanation, and concede Crowe's point that some speciation events are maladaptive at the gene's-eye level without thinking this threatens the algorithmic-process core.","era":"1942-2024","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"With a Little Help from My Friends","page":"p. 4","canonical":"","quote":"But leaving that issue aside, let's turn to the main topic of Crowe's essay. First break (2) constituents. Natural selec- (a) Biological engineering; (b) Algorithmic; (c) Gradual, step-by-step; (d) substrate-neutral design process. These are, I think, distinct claims that do not have to stand and fall together, though defend against criticisms.","label":"With a Little Help from My Friends, p. 4"},{"n":2,"work":"Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking","page":"pp. 202–203","canonical":"","quote":"With just this roughed-out idea of Design Space in our heads, we can now see \"at a glance\" how to frame a series of questions that have haunted debate about evolution ever since Darwin's time: Are there any actual designs, natural or artificial, that are not ultimately derived from that single Tree of Life, either directly or indirectly?","label":"Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, pp. 202–203"},{"n":3,"work":"Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking","page":"pp. 203–204","canonical":"","quote":"And it must have occurred to many other onlookers that in principle this big crane could be used to enable or speed up the building of a still more spectacular crane.","label":"Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, pp. 203–204"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"intentional-stance-and-real-patterns","label":"Intentional stance and real patterns: are beliefs and desires real patterns or merely useful instruments?"},{"slug":"multiple-drafts-model-and-heterophenomenology","label":"Multiple Drafts Model and heterophenomenology: is there a fact of the matter about what is conscious at any given moment?"},{"slug":"qualia-and-the-philosophical-zombie","label":"Qualia and the philosophical zombie: can the Hard Problem be dissolved without remainder?"},{"slug":"free-will-worth-wanting","label":"Free will worth wanting: does compatibilism preserve moral responsibility without skyhooks?"},{"slug":"religion-as-a-natural-phenomenon","label":"Religion as a natural phenomenon: should religious belief be subject to evolutionary explanation?"}]}