In 2008 Fuller's book on the intelligent design controversy, Dissent Over Descent: Intelligent Design's Challenge to Darwinism was published. Steven Poole of The Guardian wrote: "book is an epoch-hopping parade of straw men, incompetent reasoning and outright gibberish, as when evolution is argued to share with astrology a commitment to "action at a distance", except that the distance is in time rather than space. It's intellectual quackery like this that gives philosophy of science a bad name."[45] Michael Ruse, Philosopher of Science at Florida State University wrote in the journal Science that Fuller's book "is completely wrong and is backed by no sound scholarship whatsoever. In at least one case, Fuller makes his case by an egregious misreading—of something I wrote about the role of genetic drift in Sewall Wright's shifting balance theory. For the record, Charles Darwin set out to provide a cause, what he called—following his mentors like William Whewell (who in turn referred back to Newton)—a true cause or vera causa. Darwin felt, and historians and philosophers of science as well as practicing evolutionary biologists still feel, that he succeeded…"[46] In a "book of the week" review by retired Divinity Professor Keith Ward in the Times Higher Education Supplement, the book was praised for providing often overlooked information and provocative interpretations, but was criticised for a number of inaccuracies and misrepresentations.[47]
A. C. Grayling, in New Humanist, wrote that the book contains a "mark of ignorance and historical short-sightedness on Fuller's part".[48] In response, Fuller wrote an online response saying "if Grayling's grasp of the history of science went beyond head-banging standards, he would realise that our current level of scientific achievement would never have been reached, and more importantly that we would not be striving to achieve more, had chance-based explanations dominated over the design-based ones in our thinking about reality."[49] To which Grayling wrote: "Steve Fuller complains, as do all authors whose books are panned, that I did not read his book properly (or at all)."[50] He continued, "I'll take on Fuller any day regarding the history and theology of the various versions of Christianity with which humanity has been burdened. […] The same applies to the history of science."[50]
Last edited by antelope_sniper; 02/29/20.
You didn't use logic or reason to get into this opinion, I cannot use logic or reason to get you out of it.
You cannot over estimate the unimportance of nearly everything. John Maxwell
