SocraticGadfly: Did Robert Wright play ‘gotcha’ with Dan Dennett on intelligent design issue?

October 09, 2004

Did Robert Wright play ‘gotcha’ with Dan Dennett on intelligent design issue?

Robert Wright, social philosopher and author of “Nonzero,” among other works, claims that he got noted cognitive philosopher — and noted atheist and naturalist — Daniel Dennett — to admit that evolution shows principles of design.

Dennett has fired back, claiming he was speaking about purely hypothetical instances of evolution in nature examined from a hypothetical point of view.

I picked this up on Andrew Sullivan’s website; Wright’s postings are on Beliefnet. I’ve skimmed them but haven’t had a chance to closely peruse his comments.

However, having read all of Dennett’s major books, and his care with at least the written word, I am highly doubtful that Wright tripped Dennett up. My guess is it’s a little spinning and blowing out of proportion by Wright.

And, given that the original debate, and the follow-up back and forth, all being on Beliefnet, that only increases my skepticism that Wright is either mightily pushing the envelope of a different perception on one point in a debate, or else he's engaged in “gotcha” polemics.

While I certainly agree with Wright’s premise of viewing human development, at the least, as a non-zero-sum game, or possibly viewing evolution in general that way somehow, that in no way logically implies a designer behind the curtain.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I haven't had a chance to watch the video in question, but I too doubt that Dennett was really admitting what Wright claims he was.