Prof. Dan Dennett admits his admiration for Charles Darwin might involve an element of vanity. Standing behind a lectern in the Ryan Family Auditorium, Dennett paused for laughter as a photo of Darwin dominated the PowerPoint presentation, highlighting a strikingly similar white beard.
Dennett is the third speaker to participate in One Book One Northwestern’s lecture series on “The Reluctant Mr. Darwin,” a novel that discusses Darwin’s life and work leading up to the publication of “On the Origin of Species.” Dennett, a philosopher from Tufts University and author of a number of books and scholarly articles, tied natural selection to the evolution of reasoning abilities at Thursday night’s event.
Weinberg freshman Ross Zhan read “The Reluctant Mr. Darwin” over the summer and was interested by an earlier lecture in the One Book series. Although unfamiliar with Dennett and his work, Zhan decided to hear him speak after receiving e-mails from the One Book committee promoting the event.
“The e-mails sparked my interest,” Zhan said.
On Thursday night, Dennett discussed the conflict between creationism and the theory of evolution. He addressed a number of arguments against evolution, asking the audience a question commonly posed by creationists.
“‘Do you know of any building that didn’t have a builder? If ‘Yes,” give details,'” Dennett read, and then waited.
“Take that, you evolutionists, you!” he said, imagining the response of a creationist, to audience laughter.
Northwestern professor Uri Wilensky finds speakers to participate in the lecture series and asked Dennett to speak at Northwestern as an old friend. Dennett and Wilensky have collaborated on a number of projects and have both participated in a salon where professors spent hours discussing issues related to cognitive science.
“He’s a very lively, provocative and entertaining speaker, one of interest to undergraduate students here,” Wilensky said.
Dennett spoke at Northwestern almost eight years ago, when he debated another professor on the subject of consciousness. The debate was standing-room only, according to Wilensky.
The One Book committee tries to attract students with stimulating speakers, but they included additional incentives to attend by handing out free flash drives and offering the opportunity to win an iPod shuffle.
Even though the majority of seats in the auditorium were taken, they were filled by at least as many non-students as students. Susan Gaud, an Evanston resident and 1982 alum of NU’s graduate school, received an e-mail about the event and decided to come learn more about the theory of evolution.
“My daughter has questioned some of the traditional biology textbooks that don’t explain evolution very well,” she said. “(Dennett) helped, and I thought the lecture was quite provocative.”
