Entry tags:

authorwank, books, fun with fundies, inappropriate references to acts of god, it's not for you, pretention, religion, reviews

Intelligently designed wank
Who's in the mood for a good ol' academic tussle?

1. Professor Steve Fuller writes a book called Dissent over Descent: Intelligent Design's Challenge to Darwinism.

2. Professor AC Grayling reviews the book for New Humanist magazine.

It is sometimes hard to know whether books that strike one as silly and irresponsible...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.

3. Fuller responds to the review.

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.

4. Grayling responds to the response.

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.

5. Forum fight!

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	jupiterpluvius 2008-10-02 04:00 am UTC (link)
	Is it wrong that I get a shiny feeling in my heart when I see that this nitwit Fuller teaches at a decent UK university? Because I am so sick of people dismissing Intelligent Design idiocy as an "only in America" thing. HEE! (Reply to this)(Thread)

	wolfsamurai 2008-10-02 07:21 am UTC (link)
	Stupidity is a truly global force. (Reply to this)(Parent)

ellensmithee
2008-10-02 08:29 am UTC (link)

Well, it is mainly an American thing in that it arose out of the particular brand of American fundamentalism and the idea hasn't really spread much farther than the US and I rather doubt it will. I think a lot of people have never heard of ID/creationism in Europe (I'm in Germany, but generalizing since many European countries are even more secularized than Germany is), and those that have don't take it very seriously and don't really understand why American scientists or politicians are giving it ID lip service at all.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

birene
2008-10-02 09:54 pm UTC (link)

You must have missed the LULZ about that one local (CDU) politician that immediately proposed the teaching of ID/creationism in German schools after she had heard of the concept because she found it just so awesome.(Okay, at least she said it should be teached in religious class and not science class)

When everyone went "Bzuh? Crazy much?" on her she was very dissapointed and explained that the people really could trust her with the promotion of crazy religious/conservative ideas since she's a lesbian.

So yeah, the crazy it's everywhere. (Just thankfully not as much over here. Yet.)

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ellensmithee
2008-10-02 10:15 pm UTC (link)

LOL! Yes, I did miss that (though it doesn't surprise me).

I really hope ID and that whole dominionist/fundamentalist movement doesn't spread here. I'm familiar with a few of the really odd non-denominational fundie sects here since two of my siblings decided the Catholic church was "too lax" (their words, and this in a village of 300 where they had mass every morning at 6 am while they were growing up) and they both joined different, but equally off-the-wall churches, but both churches and some of the others I've become aware of over the years seem almost isolationist and tend to target people who have weak personalities (I've seen my sil's church in action, and they really do a number on people) or immigrants.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	eilan 2008-10-03 09:17 am UTC (link)
	I think it was in Hessen. I, too, am surprised that wasn't in Bavaria. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ellensmithee 2008-10-02 10:16 pm UTC (link)
	My husband's siblings, rather, not mine (I'm American). (Reply to this)(Parent)

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