This most certainly beats any rivalry forum slapfest, however. You practically need a dictionary, access to Encyclopedia Britannica, and a pass to the Library of Congress to understand half of what Grayling and Fuller are arguing about. Well, maybe not you per se. But I certainly needed to look some things up. And I consider myself fairly well read and well versed on the subjects of Atheism, Christianity, Intelligent Design, Creationism, and science. But these guys take it to a whole new academic level. I found all three responses and the subsequent forum exchange thoroughly enjoyable and well worth the read. Hopefully your head doesn’t implode from the extreme leaps in logic that Fuller attempts. Chinese gymnasts couldn’t compete with the sure athleticism of his brain’s ability to contort at will. It’s truly breathtaking. Enjoy.
Origin of the specious
It is sometimes hard to know whether books that strike one as silly and irresponsible, like Dissent over Descent, the latest book from Steve Fuller, are the product of a desire to strike a pose and appear outrageous (the John Gray syndrome), or really do represent that cancer of the contemporary intellect, post-modernism. I suppose putatively sincere extrusions of the post-modern sensibility might henceforth deserve to be known as “the Steve Fuller syndrome”. For this offering by the American-born sociologist is a classic case of the absurdity to which that sensibility leads.
Against the faith
I wish I could repay AC Grayling’s compliment by naming an exotic mental pathology after him, but regrettably his review of Dissent over Descent displays disorders of a much more mundane kind: he has merely failed to read the book properly and does not know what he is talking about. Other than a sense of the chapter titles, the reader of his review will learn nothing about the contents of the book. My only difficulty in responding to Grayling is that he connects so little with what I actually say – for example, his longest quote from me is eight words. However, based on what Grayling himself says in the review, my guess is that he cooked it up using this five-part recipe:
1. Flip book’s pages to find names of philosophers. (Hint: index may prove helpful.)
2. Note that author positions these philosophers in unfamiliar ways that seem to make Intelligent Design (ID) look good.
3. Condemn immediately by applying A-level intellectual history boilerplate.
4. Appease readers whose own knowledge is also at this level and whose prejudices are like those of the reviewer.
5. Repeat as necessary.
Bolus of nonsense
Steve Fuller complains, as do all authors whose books are panned, that I did not read his book properly (or at all). Alas, I did. And as I did so I naturally thought (again as all authors are apt to do) that I wish he had read the two books I’d previously written on the history of the relation of religious thought to scientific and ethical thinking, in the modern period as regards the former and from classical antiquity as regards the latter. Had he done so he might not - if he had understood them, he could not - have written as he has done in the course of trying to defend the dressed-up version of creationism which calls itself “Intelligent Design theory”.
And the good times continue to roll….in the forum
Be honest; you had to look up “Bolus” didn’t you? I did. And I’m not sure how he’s a applying it.
Look, Fuller can claim that he’s an expert of religious upbringing because he was schooled by the Jesuits. But history is strewn with people that could, at best, be described as highly educated idiots. George Bush, anyone? Hell, I was raised Mormon. That doesn’t mean I’m an expert on the Mormon faith. Sadly, I learned more about that particular religion after I left that church.
But Fuller falls into the same trap as the rest of ID’ers or Creationists: you can’t start with the answer and then find the evidence. That’s the number one failure of any attempt to inject religion into science. Science is only concerned with what’s observable and factual. What ID and Creationism purport to do is fill in the knowledge gaps as they currently exist. But one could argue that their aims are far more nefarious in that they’re attempting to cast doubt on time tested scientific procedures such as radiometric dating. Who’s really playing loose with science when one side of the argument wishes you to believe that accepting the speed of light as variable over time is not only okay, but a foundation for believing that it has always been constant as an assumption in doubt? That’s only acceptable if you have no foundational understanding of the conservation of energy.
Personally, I think any attempt to “prove” your god in crude, physical terms, cheapens its existence. If he/she/it is truly the alpha and omega, beginning and end, omnipotent, omnipresent, all knowing, and all powerful, then why is there this insistence on making it a logical conclusion of the physical world we observe around us. To me, it seems like a natural response to prove how right they are as science, real science, continues to progress towards the natural conclusion: there is no need for a god. And frankly, that’s okay. Once you can accept that, you can start seeing the world as it is in all its glory and, sometimes, horror.
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