Fuller reviewed
Norm Levitt reads Steve Fuller. You remember Steve Fuller, right? The guy who so helpfully testified for the defense – for the ID side – at Dover? The guy whose testimony helped the other side win? The supposed lefty who is a fan of creationism? Sure you do.
The book under review is Fuller’s subsequent effort to justify philosophically the position that failed so miserably to sway the Kitzmiller ruling in ID’s favor. It is with frank satisfaction and not a little glee that I can report that it is a truly miserable piece of work, crammed with errors scientific, historical, and even theological…In this review I also want to consider the defection of Fuller (who all his life has proclaimed himself a progressive and “leftist”) to a cause demonstrably reactionary in all respects.
No but see the thing is the religious side is always the left side because The People are religious and The Scientists are an elite so therefore a good lefty always has to side with religion.
That obliviousness is even more evident in Fuller’s utter failure to come to terms with the political nature of the Intelligent Design movement. He mentions the notorious “wedge” strategy once or twice, but only with an exculpatory purpose…The “wedge”…is a patently reactionary political program, not a philosophical one. Naturally, this embarrassing fact is too much for someone who, like Fuller, thinks of himself as a left-populist, to admit directly.
Some of us had some experience of trying to argue with Fuller directly over at Talking Philosophy, but he’s one of those exasperating people who just ignore anything they don’t feel like answering. Like Theo Hobson. The fact that he doesn’t admit the reactionary nature of the program he’s supporting comes as no surprise.
[sarcasm]
Gee, OB, why could you find it exasperating for people to simply ignore any criticism they don’t feel like addressing and repeat the same ideas with slightly different phrasing over and over as if that made their arguments better?
[/sarcasm]
Some anonymous troll (or trolls – damned LJ doesn’t automatically add an option to post a comment name for non-LJers, so everyone’s “anonymous”) did exactly the same sort of thing in comments on the post about consensus & crankery you linked to the other day. Fortunately, since it’s my personal journal and not any kind of open forum, when my exasperation topped out I was free to tell ’em to piss off and delete any further “contributions” in the same vein. My sympathies that you didn’t have the same option with Fuller at Talking Philosophy.
Come to think of it, Fuller is essentially a clueless troll – except haunting the halls of academia instead of the blogosphere. And tenured.
It strikes me that the tenure system’s protection of academic freedom is much like constitutional free speech protections (e.g. the 1st Amendment): Protecting everyone’s academic freedom/free speech is essential to the advancement of knowledge/democracy, but it requires that even idiots who talk nonsense have the right to do so with an absolute minimum of constraint by their academic institution/government.
Fuller works in the UK, he doesn’t have tenure, no one here does, instead he has massive public indifference on his side…
Hmm. I thought there was something parallel to our tenure system in the UK. Perhaps they’ve never needed it, substituting sheer institutional inertia in its place…
G how is the tenure in any way like the first amendment? the first amendmend insures the free exchange of ideas the tenure system restricts the influx of fresh blood thus insuring that the speech will stagnate.