<H3>More on Wright claiming Dennett supports design</H3>

Robert Wright has claimed that atheist cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett recently agreed that evolution shows evidence of design, as I note below.

Even if that were true, by some perceptions, Dennett could have simply had a little slip of the tongue.

But he says here that it isn’t true, namely that he clearly used the word “if.”

Wright himself talks about the interview here.

As for his claim that direction in evolution (or something else) requires purpose, that doesn’t at all necessarily follow. Science is replete with organisms and systems having emergent properties.

True, a strong reductionist like Dennett, in my opinion, doesn’t like dealing with emergent properties, as they can be hard to fit into his highly reductionistic Procrustean bed. But their existence doesn’t negate reductionism as a general tool, nor materialism as a philosophical stance. They may put some constraints on the thoroughgoingness of reductionism, that's all.

Or, alternative B, Dennett, having consistently used “design” and “designer” in anthropomorphizing fashion, objects when Wright “translates” them literalistically, or sensationalizes his use of them.

Wright does offer a mea culpa for this. But, as he was posting written copy, not the original videotape, he had time to reflect as to how much context he was keeping, or interrupting, or removing entirely.

I think Wright is a thought-provoking writer with some great things to say on matters of social theory; but I still think he has played “gotcha,” at least to a degree, with Dennett.

(As a sidebar, I have no doubt Dennett was blunt at least in some of his replies; I've seen him in sharp give-and-take in the video of “A Glorious Accident’ (see it or buy the book) and I’ve had a brief e-mail exchange with him once; and while he was kind enough to reply, I have no doubt he could have been curt or more if he felt I were worth the effort. I did actually experience a bit of testiness in a conversation with Steven Pinker on some of the same issues of nature vs. nurture about which I disagree with them.)