Part I: Starting in the Middle Darwin's Dangerous Idea

darwin s dangerous idea makes extensive use of cranes analogy.

darwin provided such alternative: evolution. besides providing evidence of common descent, introduced mechanism explain it: natural selection. according dennett, natural selection mindless, mechanical , algorithmic process—darwin s dangerous idea. third chapter introduces concept of skyhooks , cranes (see below). suggests resistance darwinism based on desire skyhooks, not exist. according dennett, reductionists explain apparent design without skyhooks; greedy reductionists try explain without cranes.

chapter 4 looks @ tree of life, such how can visualized , crucial events in life s history. next chapter concerns possible , actual, using library of mendel (the space of logically possible genomes) conceptual aid.

in last chapter of part i, dennett treats human artifacts , culture branch of unified design space. descent or homology can detected shared design features unlikely appear independently. however, there forced moves or tricks discovered repeatedly, either natural selection (see convergent evolution) or human investigation.