Knowledge Problem

Hayek and Dennett on the Design Fallacy

Lynne Kiesling

Since we’re riffing off of Hayek today, I’ll take one of his most pithy and insightful quotes, from The Fatal Conceit:

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

I want to use that quote to tee up a video I’ve been meaning to share for some time — philosopher Daniel Dennett discussing evolution, and how the attempt to infer “intelligent design” in evolutionary processes reveals just how deeply the design fallacy runs in human cognition.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzN-uIVkfjg]

Why do humans have so much difficulty with emergence, with spontaneous/unplanned order? Why do so many people believe that ordered and coordinated outcomes must be intentionally designed?