(Updated: title typo)
Via John, the Evolutionary Middleman, I came across a video of Daniel Dennet giving a talk titled "Darwin's Dangerous Idea."
Since I swiped John's link, I'll swipe part of his pitch, too:
Even those who are steeped in evolutionary theory will be enlightened by some of his unique insights. Fair warning -- it is over an hour long and by the end you will wish it was two!
I completely agree. It started out seeming a little basic to me, but I know Dennet -- he's a philosopher by profession, so he likes to lay a firm foundation for his ideas. He's a fine speaker, with a gentle voice and a good sense of humor, so I wasn't suffering, and, within a few minutes, I was hooked.
This isn't just a straight lecture on natural selection. Part of Dennet's purpose is to analyze why some people find Darwin's ideas so hard to accept, and to rebut their arguments against evolution. Then he takes another step, going beyond purely anatomical characteristics, and examines how the growth of human ideas, beliefs, and languages can be explained by the same evolutionary mechanisms.
Highly recommended. Watch it here.
4 comments:
Wow. This is SO Cool! I get to do to YOU what you did to ME!
I'm sure it was just a typo when you said "Dennett on Dawkins" instead of "Dennett on Darwin".
And now we are completely even, each having "swiped" something from the other!
Heh. Thanks.
Given the shared "Da," not to mention "w," "i," and "n," I can believe my fingers did that, but I'm surprised my eyes didn't pick it up.
Well, I'm pleased to see the imbed didn't work for you either. I wonder what the problem was.
John --
I didn't try to embed the video. No particular reason except it didn't occur to me.
I could try on my test blog, if you want some data for troubleshooting purposes.
Post a Comment