Some Thoughts from Darwin's Dangerous Idea, part 2. Breaking the Spell

In the previous essay, I shared some ideas from my quick read of Daniel Dennett’s Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. A discussion of mimetic evolution was one of the main objectives of Dennett’s book. But an even more important objective, found also in his book Freedom Evolves, is that you do not have to have a spirit in order to have free will.

If we do not have free will, does this mean we will go wild? If we do not have a spirit, does this mean that everybody wants to get away with everything? Only God can keep us from going freaking crazy? Dennett says no. Most humans want to be morally responsible; benefits accrue from it. We choose to be good because when our evolutionary ancestors chose to be good, they reaped evolutionary benefits.

Another important Dennett book is Breaking the Spell. The meme that has grasped the minds of billions of people is that religion cannot be questioned. But Dennett says that if we don’t question religion, it might come to exist only in toxic forms. Many people consider religion to be good, a mimetic mutualist. If religion is a cultural parasite, it will conceal its true nature from its host. Only by examining religion can we consciously kill the toxic ideas and let the good ones reproduce.

Religion, Dennett suggests, is a placebo effect. We like it because it makes us feel better. But is this such a bad thing? Isn’t religion okay even if it is a placebo effect? In medicine, the placebo effect causes the body to unleash all of its healing capacities. Dennett discussed belief in believing in God, that is, the belief that believing in God is a good thing for an individual and society.

In his book Homo Mysterious, David Barash says that a sweet tooth was adaptive in prehistoric days, but now it is dangerous because it leads to obesity and diabetes; maybe religion is the same. The same idea was suggested centuries earlier by historian Edward Gibbon: “The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful.” If religion is a placebo, then has it outlived its usefulness? Or is it still a good placebo?

Sometimes. But perhaps more often religion inspires people to do heinous things, as with the Puritans and the Taliban. It depends on the side-effects. “The more you have invested in your religion, the more you will be motivated to protect that investment” (Breaking the Spell, 195). To assure faithfulness, and to keep out the pretenders, religions have high entry and exit costs. Like a virus, a religion can shed the antibodies of skepticism. Dennett says the moderates of any religion are being used by the extremists as a cloak of respectability (page 300). When Christians are quietly shocked by the deeds of Christian extremists, “expressions of dismay to close friends are not enough” (page 301).

The statement that “God exists,” says Dennett, is not even a theory, since God cannot be defined.

What should we teach about religion? Should we teach atheism? Dennett is one of the most famous atheists in the world, so you probably think you know the answer. You probably think he believes we should teach atheism. But his answer is that we should not teach atheism as truth. He says, Let’s have more religion rather than less religion taught in classes, and cover all religions, the positives and negatives of each. Let us reasonably choose our religion, or our lack of it, and give our students and readers the information they need to make a reasonable choice.

Thoughts on Darwin's Dangerous Idea and other books by Daniel Dennett, part 1

I recently skimmed through Daniel Dennett’s book Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. It is a huge book and I would have had to devote a significant chunk of my life to read and understand it. But I did get a few ideas from it that I will pass on to you now.

One of the really significant things about evolutionary science—indeed, about any science—is that it does not matter who makes the discoveries. Dennett said that Darwin was the midwife of an idea. Without Darwin, somebody else would have discovered evolution (actually, somebody else did right about the same time: Alfred Russel Wallace.) Without Newton, somebody else would have discovered the laws of motion, optics, etc. Without Einstein, somebody else would have discovered relativity. This is the reason that we scientists are so forthright in proclaiming our messages as truth: If we are wrong, our error will be revealed. History is full of scientific blunders, but scientists don’t care. We sort of expect them.

In contrast, artistic creations would never have happened without their creators. There would have been no Gran Partita without Mozart. The same is true of religion: There would have been no Islam without Mohammed, for example. The credibility of a piece of art or of religion depends on its creator. That is why if somebody finds an error in evolution, we’ll just fix it, but if someone claims to find an error in the Bible or the Koran, watch out!

Also, Dennett wrote extensively of the evolution of memes. Memes are concepts that can replicate, for example ideas in the minds of people. They spread by a process very similar to natural selection in organisms. There are some differences, however. The evolution of memes does not depend on random mutation, as does the evolution of genes. Humans invent new memes. However, both genetic and memetic evolution involve transmission of information with modification.

Another interesting similarity between genes and memes: Memes disable anything that hinders their spread. The ultimate example is conspiracy theory memes, which claim, well, you wouldn’t expect to find any evidence for the conspiracy, because that’s what makes it an effective conspiracy. In this way, the conspiracy-theory meme disables any conceivable evidence against it. A current example is that Donald Trump claims massive voter fraud; there is no evidence for it, but that just shows what a massive fraud it was.

In addition, there is frequency-dependent selection on memes. In a population of genes, a rare gene might be favored by selection. The same thing happens with memes: the faith meme stands out in a society without faith, but in an environment of faith, it blends in.

And there’s more. A meme or idea can evolve as it does because it is advantageous to itself. An example is the meme that smoking cigarettes is cool. How could such a meme become popular? Who benefits? The tobacco corporations, of course. If an idea spreads, Dennett says, instead of an epidemic it can become an epimemic. Sometimes things can go far enough that people lose their biological fitness for a belief. In such a case, the memes are reproducing.

One of Dennett’s main objectives was to show that memes can evolve just like genes. He said we (humans) are the planet’s nervous system, and science is the new sense organs of the planet.

The foregoing makes it very clear that science is not just another way of thinking, equally admissible among all other ways of thinking.

I will leave you with a jolting thought from Dennett. “In the next century it will be our memes, both toxic and tonic, that will wreak havoc on the unprepared world.”