Chris Bertram calls it "outright gibberish". Intellectual quackery is how I'd describe it. Describe what you ask? Intelligent design creationism. And calling it quackery isn't my idea. Read Steven Poole's review of "Dissent Over Descent: Intelligent Design's Challenge To Darwinism". Here's the paragraph that Bertram quotes:
... Fuller happily adopts ID's rhetorical tactics: speaking of biologists' "faith"; forgetting to mention (or merely being ignorant of) the wealth of evidence for evolution in modern biology that wasn't available to Darwin himself; and even muttering about the "vicissitudes" of fossil-dating, thus generously holding the door open for young-Earth creationists, too. The 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.In case you don't remember who Steve Fuller is, he's a sociologist who specializes in science and technology studies at the University of Warwick. He appeared as a witness in the Dover trial tying to defend the iindefensible, i.e., trying to convince Judge Jones that intelligent design creationism is a legitimate scientific hypothesis.1 According to Poole, he embarrassed many of his colleagues in science and technology studies.
His amazingly bad new book is not likely to reassure them.
1Judge Jones didn't buy it. Here's how MSNBC described Jones's decision at the time:
Jones decried the "breathtaking inanity" of the Dover policy and accused several board members of lying to conceal their true motive, which he said was to promote religion.
Isn't Poole the guy who wrote on the aesthetics of videogames? Is he a reliable reviewer?
Poole published Trigger Happy in 2000, a book on the aesthetics of video games. In 2006 he published Unspeak, a book on political language that was "shortlisted for the 2006 Index on Censorship T.R. Fyvel Award" (quoted from his web site). That wouldn't qualify him to review a scientific book, but the synopsis at Amazon.com.uk describes Fuller's book as "revisionist history", not science. And Fuller's academic credentials are in sociology, not biology. Seems to me that Poole is more qualified to review a book coming from the science and technology studies perspective than most scientists, including me.
That's who I thought Poole was. I'm not sure a videogames guy, even one with a fine ear for the English language, is really up to speed on science and technology studies. And in any case, this whole kerfuffle about ID is about more than just biology. For the record, Fuller's PhD is in history and philosophy of science, not sociology, though he is a professor of sociology in the UK. The problem with the guys on Crooked Timber is that none of them seem to have read the book, and Poole himself seems to have just cherry-picked the bits that irked him. So it's hard to make of it all, except that it's another excuse to bash ID, postmodernists, relativists, etc.
I haven't read Fuller's book, and I only a little about science and technology studies. I'm a biologist after all. I "dabble" in philosophy of science. I've even published a couple of papers in Philosophy of Science, but it would be foolish of me to claim any expertise outside a narrow area in the philosophy of biology.
But it's in part because of that expertise that I know referring to intelligent design creationism as "intellectual quackery" is reasonable, at least as reasonable as referring to phrenology as "intellectual quackery" is reasonable. (The example is Elliot Sober's.) Both intelligent design creationism and phrenology were reasonable scientific hypotheses a century and a half ago. Both have been thoroughly discredited. Only a quack would suggest that either should be taught in any context other than one examining the history of science. If Fuller's book is defending the position so roundly rejected by Judge Jones -- "breathtaking inanity" were Jones's words --, I think Poole's conclusion is reasonable.
I can't speak for the folks at Crooked Timber, but you won't find me bashing postmodernists or poststructuralists. Although I find some of the more extreme positions to swallow, from what little I know about it, there are aspects of Feyerabend's, Rorty's, Derrida's, and Latour's thought that at least have to be acknowledged and dealt with, if not accepted.
Well, I don't know, you may be right. But just as there many different things that pass for 'evolution', not just, say, Richard Dawkins' strong gene-driven view, there are also many different things that could pass for 'intelligent design', not just the mask for creationism that the judge detected. I guess my only point is that it's not clear from anyone's account that Fuller is actually defending what Poole and the guys on Crooked Timber are trashing.