Dawkins then makes the leap to an ontological reductionism or materialism, in which matter is the fundamental reality and only material causes are effective.
The philosopher Daniel Dennett has defended a strong neo-Darwinian position, drawing from biology, probability theory, cognitive science, and computer simulations. Evolution, he asserts, is the product of a mindless, purposeless process. He vehemently rejects all forms of intelligent design, including Darwin's belief that the laws of evolution rather than individual species were the product of design. In a protracted critique of Gould he insists that mutations and natural selection are the only factors responsible for the direction of evolutionary change. Through random mutations a population's genes explore the neighboring portions of "design space" (the set of all possible genetic configurations). Through natural selection, those genes that confer adaptive advantages are passed on with greater frequency. Selection is thus an automatic impersonal process following an algorithm (a formal rule with simple steps).[iv].
The status of design space in Dennett's thought is not altogether clear. In some passages he compares it to the Platonic order of eternal forms, though of course for him the forms are not ideas in the mind of God as they were in classical thought. In other passages design space seems to be the abstract set of all genetic possibilities, with little inherent structure. In any case, the exploration of design space occurs entirely by chance. The subsequent retention of new configurations is the product of contingent environmental conditions and the usefulness of certain general capacities, such as vision, locomotion, and intelligence.
What is design work? It is the wonderful wedding of chance and necessity, happening in a trillion places at once, at a trillion different levels. And what miracle caused it? None. It just happened to happen, in the fullness of time.