Human Dignity and Bioethics

Commentary on Dennett
Robert P. Kraynak
D
aniel Dennett is a leading spokesman in our times for Darwinian
natural science and, more broadly, for scientific materialism.
Known for his long white beard and sense of humor, he is often
compared to Santa Claus. But this comparison is very misleading.
Dennett’s intellectual mission, one might say, is to tell the world that
there is no Santa Claus—no “comforting myths” about God, creation,
intelligent design, the human soul, or ultimate purpose and
meaning in the cosmos.
Dennett likes to shock audiences by saying that such beliefs are
like appeals to mythical “skyhooks”—to miracles from heaven that
have been discredited by modern science, which has shown all educated
and intelligent people (the “brights,” as he likes to call his superior
group) that the universe is just an accident, the laws of nature
are accidents, the emergence of life, human beings, and society are
simply the incremental accidents of Darwinian evolution. “Get over
it!” Dennett implores us: there are only material causes in a material
world that is indifferent to man and that has order (if not purpose)
only because the incremental accidents that shaped the world have
been “frozen” in place over time. We live in a universe of “frozen accidents,”
and that is where we must make our home.
Dennett also likes to argue against philosophers of mind who
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