I have mixed feelings about Dennett. I really liked his book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, but in public appearances he tends to give off a patronizing air. But earlier today I heard him on WBUR (NPR in Boston) and he did an excellent job of explainning why we, the science community, must begin to study the biological roots of religious beliefs. I also want to add that Dennett did a much better job than Dawkins who in "The Root of all Evil?" (Parts I and II) acted mostly as a cheerleader for one side of the science/religious divide. Click here to listen to the interview.
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I also have mixed feelings about Dennett. I love his work on religion. I hated "Dennett's Dangerous Book" - that is how we call it around here - because it is written well, too well, deceptively well, yet totally misunderstands evolution. It took two careful readings to finally discover at which step in his logical progression he committed a fallacy - and I am somewhat informed about evolution. Laymen have no chance to figure it out and will be impressed and swallow the whole nonsense, including Dennett's nonsensical conclusions in the end.
Really? Please do tell. I read it and quite liked it. But if you can offer further insight (through a critical analysis of his work) I'd be very interested.
I've seen him talk about consciousness, and I found him totally uninsightful and too dismissive of his critics (when it came to that subject). I've heard similar things about his books on consciousness.
coturnix:
I also like Dennett's writings (although it seems as though he might be an arrogant SoB in person) and, while I am not trained in the bio sciences (I am a physiscist), I tend to think that I get it when it comes to evolution. I, too, would like to know where you feel that Dennett got it wrong as I only fininshed reading DDI in the last few weeks and was uite impressed.
PS: Your comments about your son's science text give me hope for the future of science education (sometimes I become a little disillusioned with my daughters' scie ed). However, the Math text series that our district uses - University of Chicago Math Science Project - are likewise very good and they have just implemented an excellent UCSMP elementary curriculum as well that my younger daughter is using. I also taught math for five years in our county and think that they are awesome. I'll comment more on topic under your science book post (I was too busy to go into detail the other day when I read it and my boos is standing in my doorway!).