Coming from an Epistemologist, the following paragraphs are very poor — quite cloddy in fact, loaded with fake arguments, even referring to an "obstruction" of "false consciousness on both side" whatever this means. Straight away, one should smell a rat. Actually Steve Fuller sees equality of arguments between science and intelligent design — and has been a proponent of the freedom to teach intelligent design. Wrong.

 

Future historians will regard the dispute between intelligent design theorists and Darwinian evolutionists as obstructed by false consciousness on both sides. On the one side, there is nothing especially "conservative" about intelligent design theory, with its inclination to seek evidence for God as the cleverest artificer of them all. This is very much an Enlightenment perspective, one consonant with the U.S. founding fathers - but by no means at home with more traditional, church-bound Christians. Here it is worth recalling that the intellectual godfather of today's intelligent design movement, William Paley, was one of Thomas Malthus's early boosters - and both were clerics.

Put bluntly, intelligent design theory began its modern existence as the ideology of the liberal middle class - the "can do" sort of people who morphed into Unitarians, Transcendentalists and New Agers. This helps to explain the general lack of enthusiasm in more traditional Christian precincts for intelligent design: the fit between God and humanity is just too close for comfort.

On the other side of the issue, the plaintiffs' success inspired the atheists who were most vocal in championing the Darwinist cause to present a positive world-view that might itself claim space as a "religion" in state schools. So far, humanism has provided the most attractive guise, albeit more for political than strictly intellectual reasons. After all, there is nothing in Darwinism that privileges humans per se above other forms of life. Moreover, as Stephen LeDrew has recently documented, contemporary atheism is an ideology that feeds on strife, which if not turned against theism will turn against itself. Thus, atheists tend to see more conflict between science and religion than theists do, while atheists cannot agree among themselves whether the absence of God licenses sheer libertarianism or, rather, the sort of social welfarist regime that a benevolent deity might wish, were he to exist.

As for the future: while intelligent design theorists will need to drop their "conservative" pose to consolidate their position with intellectual fellow-travellers, Darwinists will be reaping the whirlwind of atheism as they try to establish a positive world-view.

Steve Fuller is Auguste Comte Professor of Social Epistemology at the University of Warwick. His latest book is Knowledge: The Philosophical Quest in History.

read more: 

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/12/22/4376838.htm

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"False consciousness on both sides"? Crap. Why the reference to the founding members of America? Is it because they referred to the almighty in whatever religious system one believed in in order to make the first amendment? Meanwhile, William Paley and Thomas Malthus were both cleric during the "age of enlightement" during which many philosophers became estranged with the idea of god. So these two sort of invented a pseudo-watchmaker's argument — reminding us of the egg and the chicken conundrum (which is not a conundrum in evolutionary terms).

Of course, Paley's arguments were devised before we knew about evolution, evolution being simply a formula to accept an earthly development of human nature, as well as that of the universe, with evidence — but WITH NO INTENT OF CREATION. 

Let's hope that future historians have more sense than this epistemologist of today... 

So, one should ask oneself, what is the purpose of intelligent design? 

Intelligent design is a theory developed to make you swallow the idea of god, because "life is too complex and one needs a designer to plan it". It's an improved reformatting of creationism, possibly invented by bourgeois (liberal middle class as Fuller puts it) that has no place in scientific understanding. It is nonsensical to the observation of evolution, devolution and extinction — at species and at individual levels.

So what is the real purpose of intelligent design belief? 

In the end, the scheme — as improved creationism — is still aimed to make us believe that morality is divine. This is the junction at which atheists and scientists cannot accept the construct of what we are and come from. 

In real term, should we accept that god is the cleverest artificer of them all, one would have to say that, according to the scriptures, He (He is a Male) is a very immoral bastard, a vengeful nasty warring Psychopath, who is happy to dish out pain and death on his flocks as a means to test the future of what He knows already. 

This does not make any more sense than killing oneself to see if death is permanent. It's all bollocks. 

The constructs of nature are more refined and more delicate and more powerful, while being totally a-moralistic on the living structures. 

The only morality that comes out of life is that which we invent in order to relatively minimise the hurt and maximise the contentment from life. Like capitalism is a means to structure conservative or socialist setups, morality is a means to profit from an organised structure, in which all people believe in the same shit.

"Darwinists will be reaping the whirlwind of atheism as they try to establish a positive world-view."

I am at a loss to understand what is truly meant here. What is the "whirlwind of atheism"? I have no idea. Is the author, trying to let us know that atheism is a force of destruction while trying to promote a positive outlook on life, a positive outlook on life designed to fail without the restrictions of divine — or intelligently designed — morality?

Is understanding the mechanics of life, without a superior being having invested time in our behaviour, such a problem? is it because we might not be able to control our "natural" urges unless we believe we'll be whacked by the superior being — at one stage or another, usually at our time of death, when the accountant comes along to tally our having behaved-badly? Totally unbelievable unless one is a brainwashed individual, even with "doubtful" caveats such as that of Blaise Pascal who, though a clever person, was a silly bum for letting himself die because of brainwashing.

Is humanism so bad that our relationships cannot be maintained by simply knowing and accepting we are chimpanzees with no fur coat and a bigger memory? And is it impossible to understand that we relatively need to be respectful of each other in order to happily survive our limited time in this pleasant or unpleasant chaos? Is it so hard to accept that we're going to die no matter what?

It's time to grow up and understand the mechanics of chaotic behaviour through freedom, while accepting the limit of the self evolved system of life.

 

...with the Acts of the Apostles, making use of "undesigned coincidences" to argue that these documents mutually supported each other's authenticity. Some have said this book was the most original of Paley's works. It was followed in 1794 by the celebrated View of the Evidences of Christianity, which was also added to the examinations at Cambridge, remaining on the syllabus until the 1920s.[4]

"Undesigned coincidences?" Is not this a bit self serving to believe that a few geezers wrote the same thing confirming the "authenticity" of the story, while we should really know that many of the bits were written at various stage by forger-copiers, reformatted into a few sets, while dropping all the bits that did not fit in — including the fifth gospel? Coincidence? Bollocks: it's Collusion.

As John Pollock stated:

... to justify a belief one must appeal to a further justified belief. This means that one of two things can be the case. Either there are some beliefs that we can be justified for holding, without being able to justify them on the basis of any other belief, or else for each justified belief there is an infinite regress of (potential) justification [the nebula theory]. On this theory there is no rock bottom of justification. Justification just meanders in and out through our network of beliefs, stopping nowhere.

 

 

Unless one believes, the beliefs are not justifiable. Beliefs rely on the sophistry of their own demands.

It's time to grow up and understand the unpredictability of the mechanics of chaotic behaviour through freedom of energy and restriction of quantum association, while accepting the limit of justification as relative — even that is strongly backed up with knowledge. 

Yes, justification is a big word that has long had a smelly underlying feel of divine purpose and godly meaning outside proper philosophical discourse. 

Science is not trying to give meaning, nor justification to the construct —unlike intelligent design, which seems to, a-priori, because of complexities, give an intent to the universe. Nothing can be so distant than such theory as intelligent design, which is highly unscientific, and atheism, in which there is no intent in the system, except that which are defined by the evolution of pain and of contentment in individuals — then the process has evolve into a management thereof, through various evolutionary profitable but accidental modifications.

This view comes back to Stoicism and its antecedent, original cynicism, which in itself was not a derision of beliefs but a scepticism of a-priori. 

Here, Steve Fuller fails miserably in trying to construct a righteous philosophical freedom picket fence on which for him to sit on. Like a good philosopher that he is, he will eventually end up with a very sore arse, because the fence is ragged and full of rusty nails.

At worse, it is possible that Steve is taking the view that the intelligent design argument will eventually win because of the fabricated need of morality. 

And no, atheism does not feed on strife at most time. Atheists mostly go into a defensive mode when attacked by religion because religious mob do not want to loose their hold on the sheep and the golden goose out there. There is cash to be made from religion and none to be made from atheism. Organised religions are like armies, government or companies — involved with making cash and controlling cash. Atheists are not organised and there is no cash to be made from atheism. Atheism IS NOT A RELIGION.

In the end, this is the crux of the matter. the financial dependance from the system or not, whatever the system — faulty or illusionary, but made to appear divine to influence the behaviour of individuals.

We can grow up from this mercantile infantilism.

 

Gus Leonisky

Your local elder.