Steve Fuller

Steve Fuller

Steve Fuller is a professor of sociology at the University of Warwick who acted as an expert witness in the Dover trial in the USA in 2005. His home page is here and there is a Wikipedia entry on him here.

A rather scathing article on him can be found at http://www.talkreason.org/articles/Fuller.cfm but to give Fuller credit he has not backed way away from defending himself since Dover. Moreover, Fuller, who is an American by origin, is not seen as a creationist religious fundamentalist activist trying to sneak creationism into British classrooms. He is believed to be an agnostic. We also have to point out that Warwick is rather a good university.

Part of his problem of credibility is his background as a sociologist, not as a scientist. The scientific world basically abhors post-modernism, one of the central paradigms of sociology today. Although Fuller is not a post-modernist (as far as this author is aware), the discipline of sociology is tainted with pomo. Much of what little credibility it had amongst scientists flew straight out of the window in the 1990s with the Sokal Affair (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_Affair).

Phillip Jonhson, the lawyer who is generally recognised as the organiser behind the Discovery Institute, has openly admitted that he is a post-modernist and a deconstructionalist.

An interesting and rather jaundiced article on Fuller can be found at http://www.lablit.com/article/139/

Anther jaundiced view of him can be seen here http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,20909-2405568.html in the Times newspaper. Fuller has come under attack because he has suggested that, under some circumstances, fraud in science is OK.

Here is a blog that is critical of Fuller (he is a man that makes a lot of enemies we must say.)

Here is a review of the presentation/talk given by Professor Fuller in 2006 to the Skeptics in the Pub organisation.

Here is a copy of Professor Fuller's testimony at the Kitzmiller v Dover School Board court case in the Autumn of 2005. It's a substantial document so it will, even with broadband, take a minute or so to download.

A background article on social epistemology, Professor Fuller's main area of expertise, can be found here.

There is a lot of material on Intelligent Design on the Talk Reason web site at http://www.talkreason.org.

Lastly, there is also a podcast available through dig.com on a 2005 debate between Fuller and Jack Cohen of the University of Warwick. It seems in this debate he is claiming that there is no need to accept that there is an Intelligent designer involved in intelligent design which raises the issue as to what the intelligent design agent involved is. Fuller's argument is that you get better science if you pretend there is an intelligent designer. He actually says towards the end of the audio that it doesn't matter who the intelligent designer is; this seemingly contradicts his earlier statement that science is basically a result of the belief in the Christian God by non-conformist Protestant Christians. However, most science, in England at least, until well into the 19th century was far from a monopoly preserve of non-confirmists. Darwin himself was Anglican an a vast amount of science came out of Catholic Europe over many centuries.

(General comment: Fuller and sociology are not popular amongst mainstream scientists. However, good sociology is a very useful tool in understanding why creationism is widely accepted amongst certain groups.)

Steve Fuller’s Position in the Royal Holloway College Debate

By Roger Stanyard

This is a personal summary of Professor Steve Fuller’s position on Intelligent Design as put forward during a debate at Royal Holloway College, University of London, on 21st February 2007. It has been written after the author, who attended the debate, had transcribed the debate. At the time of writing we are awaiting clearance to post the full transcripts.

Debate at Royal Holloway College, 21st February 2007-02-25 Between Professor Lewis Wolpert and Professor Steve Fuller.

Proposition: “Intelligent Design and Evolution have the same status as scientific theories.”

Chair: Professor Johannes Zanker, Professor of Neuroscience and Head of Psychology, Royal Holloway College, University of London.

I’ll do my best to try and summarise Steve Fuller’s position in the debate and be impartial at the same time. One of the advantages I hope I bring to this is that I have transcribed all of the debate (with the help of Malcolm Stein) with the exception of the final debate with the floor. I was, of course, at the debate as well.

Professor Fuller seems to have encapsulated his arguments in the following statement during the debate: “We are talking about the need to presuppose Intelligent Design in order to be able to do science regardless of whether the Intelligent Designer exists.”

In other words, we must accept the possibility of supernatural things to do science. (3)

I think Steve Fuller’s position, as suggested during the debate, is as follows:

• 1. Science is a product of the society we live in and therefore reflects that society in its scope and methodology.
• 2. Many people in society believe in the supernatural (God).
• 3. They too, bring perspectives to science.
• 4. Therefore without allowing for the supernatural, science is incomplete.
• 5. Science cannot, from a scientific viewpoint, dismiss supernatural causes without allowing for them in the first place.
• 6. We don’t know how many scientists accept Intelligent Design.

Fuller has a more complex argument in terms of use of language. He takes this very seriously.

• 1. The scientific world, through its use of language, admits there is scope for Intelligent Design within science.
• 2. The scientific world is so ambiguous in its use of Intelligent Design language that it is open to (allows) Intelligent Design as a possibility.
• 3. The debate between Gould and Dawkins shows that even Dawkins believes in Intelligent Design.(1)
• 4. Evolutionary Theory can’t provide an explanation of evolution until it drops design language.

Fuller also raised other scientific issues.

• 1. The scientific world would be organised very differently if it allowed for the possibility of Intelligent Design (which Fuller describes in the debate as a theory).
• 2. Intelligent Design cannot be criticised in the grounds that it is not falsifiable because, in its broadest sense, evolutionary theory is not falsifiable.
• 3. God could have been involved at various unspecified levels and in various unspecified ways. (2)

Other issues raised by Fuller:

• 1. Fuller concedes that Intelligent Design is about the Abrahamic God being the designer. His personal view is that there is an intelligent designer (2).
• 2. Intelligent Design is leading to engineering becoming involved in evolutionary theory and split into two different approaches to the biological sciences.
• 3. If Darwin was return today, as a naturalist, he would support Intelligent Design.

Other observations:

There is undoubtedly a strong element of the Gish Gallup in Professor Fullers debating technique. It is very apparent from our audio recording (not so much, though in the actual debate). The technique was entirely absent from Lewis Wolpert’s presentation.

Notes (1) My interpretation here is based on what Fuller said in debating with Wolpert. Fuller describes Dawkins as an adaptationist and that it’s the same as design:

Steve Fuller: "Oh come on. Richard Dawkins is a (not clear). If there is any adaptationist, it always trades on design metaphors. People have a very strong adaptationist view of evolution."

Lewis Wolpert: "But it is not design."

Steve Fuller: "Yes it is, that’s the problem. Adaptation is designed and that’s why Stephen Jay Gould was so much up against Dawkins because he basically thought that Dawkins had this over-nice of evolution being able to create a kinda optimal world whereas Dawkins, whereas Gould believed in fact, as Darwin himself thought that, messy and lots of extinctions and big happenings for no good reason whatsover and Dawkins was creating for a kind of false sense that evolution may be more rational, which it doesn’t."

(2) Professor Fuller is understood to be an agnostic. However, he does suggest in the debate that the intelligent designer is God. To quote:

Lewis Wolpert: "There is a designer isn’t there?"

Steve Fuller: "Yes of course."

Lewis Wolpert: "Who do you thing the designer is?"

Steve Fuller: "Who do I think what the designer is?"

Lewis Wolpert: "Which word is it you don’t understand?"

Steve Fuller: "The point is, I think, people who"…

Lewis Wolpert: (not clear)

Steve Fuller: "I think it is a reference to God, of course it is."

(3) A very strange position to take, indeed, as science can and does test the possibility of the supernatural using the scientific method.

General Comments on the Debate.

My personal view is that the whole debate misfired. Wolpert basically gave a very good scientific justification for evolutionary theory but failed to demonstrate the weaknesses of Professor Fuller’s position.

Fuller was very confident in his presentation. Yet it was little over a year since Fuller was an expert witness at the Kitzmiller v Dover School Board court case. That was a disaster for Intelligent Design. Some points that may have been raised are as follows:

• 1. Michael Behe admitting that his definition of science included astrology.
• 2. Intelligent Design was shown to be creationism.
• 3. The utter dishonesty of the book “Of Pandas and People” where the term creationism was replaced with Intelligent design.
• 4. That virtually every person in the UK promoting Intelligent Design is a young earth creationist who rejects all science that does not fit with their literal view of the bible. BCSE counts no more that three scientists in the UK currently backing Intelligent Design whilst at the same time rejecting young earth creationism.
• 5. Acceptance of Intelligent Design, de facto, thus necessarily requires acceptance of a purely religious opinion on young earth creationism.
• 6. That Intelligent design is just a front for the religious belief of young earth creationism.
• 7. That, by definition of who is promoting it (and why it is being promoted), it is not compatible with any of the natural sciences, let alone the theory of evolution. It is not compatible with our understanding of geology, history, physical geography or archaeology. Debatably, it is not consistent with mathematics either.
• 8. It’s not compatible with most religious beliefs.
• 9. The flight from Intelligent Design in the USA following Dover.
• 10. The Wedge Document.
• 11. Finally, the burden of the argument rests not on mainstream science but the intelligent Design and young earth creationism advocates. It simply is not good enough saying how unreasonable mainstream science is in rejecting the supernatural. The IDers and YECers first have to come up with some plausible scientific alternatives. They have had 50 years to do so.

Wolpert was right to bring up the issue that Intelligent Design has not provided one iota of scientific understanding of the world. This can be padded out by showing just what the level of resources the Intelligent Design world has available to it. These include long-established “research” organisations (Institute for Creation Research, Creation Ministries International, Answers in Genesis and so on), the Discovery Institute, universities across the USA – Loma Linda, Regent, Liberty, Bob Jones, Biola, Patrick Henry….

The proponents of Intelligent Design (and I include creationism here, for self-evident reasons from my comments above) have been working on it for near on 50 years. If, as they claim, there are numerous scientists (i.e. a significant and substantial part of the scientific community) who accept it in some form or other, where are the results?

See also the Truth in Science summary, presumably written by Richard Buggs: http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/site/content/blogcategory/51/63/. Buggs, who acts as spokesman for Truth in Science, was in the audience at the debate.

Other references:

Here is a video of a February 2006 presentation by Steve Fuller about Intelligent Design. The irony of this presentation is that Steve Fuller is an American by origin, and throughout the presentation there is a backdrop advertising “The Science of Aliens 2006”.