A fascinating exchange over the past few days ....

Begins with Graylings demolition job on a book by IDer Steve Fuller, 'Dissent
over Descent': http://newhumanist.org.uk/1856

Fuller's response: http://newhumanist.org.uk/1880

Grayling's come-back: http://newhumanist.org.uk/1881

Fuller resorts to the New Humanist forums: http://tinyurl.com/5ct559

... where imo he gets a sound thrashing from both Grayling and other
contributors.

pg

On Sep 21, 9:28 am, "PG"  wrote:
> A fascinating exchange over the past few days ....
>
> Begins with Graylings demolition job on a book by IDer Steve Fuller, 'Dissent
> over Descent':http://newhumanist.org.uk/1856
>
> Fuller's response:http://newhumanist.org.uk/1880
>
> Grayling's come-back:http://newhumanist.org.uk/1881
>
> Fuller resorts to the New Humanist forums:http://tinyurl.com/5ct559
>
> ... where imo he gets a sound thrashing from both Grayling and other
> contributors.
>
> pg

Who gave an idiot like Fuller a job? Is it the same idiot who let a
religious nut become education officer for the Royal Society? Grayling
should hound the prat out of the country. Maybe he can find a job in
Armpit College Arkansas. Get Kroto and Roberts on the case:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/sep/14/religion

And before religious nuts start complaining about persecution, no one
is demanding that these morons be executed (the preferred Christian
solution, when they get any real power). I'm sure we'd all be glad to
see them happy and doing jobs suitable for their intelligence and
unstable mental states. Waitrose shelf sacking, say?

Richard Dawkins: 'A clergyman in charge of education for the country's
leading scientific organisation - it's a Monty Python sketch.'

'The thing the Royal Society does not appreciate is the true nature of
the forces arrayed against it and the Enlightenment for which the
Royal Society should be the last champion,' Kroto said.

On Sep 21, 11:29 pm, Paul Grieg  wrote:
> On Sep 21, 9:28 am, "PG"  wrote:
>
> > A fascinating exchange over the past few days ....
>
> > Begins with Graylings demolition job on a book by IDer Steve Fuller, 
> > 'Dissent
> > over Descent': http://newhumanist.org.uk/1856
>
> > Fuller's response: http://newhumanist.org.uk/1880
>
> > Grayling's come-back: http://newhumanist.org.uk/1881
>
> > Fuller resorts to the New Humanist forums: http://tinyurl.com/5ct559
>
> > ... where imo he gets a sound thrashing from both Grayling and other
> > contributors.
>
> Who gave an idiot like Fuller a job? Is it the same idiot who let a
> religious nut become education officer for the Royal Society? Grayling
> should hound the prat out of the country.

The University of Warwick. He lectures in sociology of law and - wait for it - 
sociology of science. Some comments on Wikipedia are particularly scathing. See 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Fuller_(social_epistemologist)  They include:

(ref Fuller's 2007 work Science Vs Religion?: Intelligent Design and the Problem 
of Evolution):
"Professor of mathematics at Rutgers University, Norman Levitt, described it ... 
as "a truly miserable piece of work, crammed with errors scientific, historical, 
and even theological"." Levitt suggests that Fuller's views stem from an 
"animosity to science as such and to its cognitive authority [that] still 
pervades academic life outside the dominion of the science faculty".

There is much more in the Wikipedia piece, include a reference to the Guardian 
review of Fuller's 'Dissent over Descent' (the one that provoked Grayling's 
reaction). The Guardian writes:

"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."

And this guy is teaching just that to British undergraduates.

pg