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Is the Teaching of Evolution to Be Banned in U.S. Public Schools? Is Science Once More to be Burned on the Cross? Will Creationism Win the 2,500 Year War with Materialism and Reason?
A critique of religious dogma historically provides the basis for rational inquiry into the physical and social world. Critique of Intelligent Design is a key to understanding the forces of irrationalism challenging the teaching of evolution in U.S. public schools and seeking to undermine the natural and social sciences. It illuminates the 2,500 year evolution of the materialist critique—the explanation of the world in terms of itself— from antiquity to the present through engaging the work of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, David Hume, William Paley, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Stephen Jay Gould, and numerous others (including contemporary advocates of 'intelligent design').
Proponents of intelligent design—creationism in a more subtle guise—have recently reignited the age-old war between materialism and creationism, in which they claim to elevate their doctrine to empirical truth and thus incorporate it into science curricula. They attack modern science, advancing a pseudo-scientific view and a reactionary political culture in line with their theology and what they perceive as a knowable moral order. They single out for criticism the greatest modern representatives of materialist-scientific thought: Darwin, Marx, and Freud.
Critique of Intelligent Design is a direct reply to the criticisms of intelligent design proponents and a compelling account of the long debate between materialism and religion in the West. It provides an overview of the contemporary fight concerning nature, science, history, morality, and knowledge. Separate chapters are devoted to the design debate in antiquity, the Enlightenment and natural theology, Marx, Darwin, and Freud, and to current scientific debates over evolution and design. It offers empowering tools to understand and defend critical and scientific reasoning in both the natural and social sciences and society as a whole.
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| $99.99 | Digital |
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David V Gutierrez
reviewed Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present on April 26, 2011
Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present
This book was not that great. It also was not that bad. It just sort of was. I would say this: if you are not familiar with the work of Stephen Jay Gould, then you will get a lot out of this book, but because I am very familiar with Gould's writing, I did not. Gould himself is a very straightforward and easy-to-read science writer, and you don't really benefit much from having his ideas filtered through the prism of Foster et al. in this book.
That being said, the ideas of Gould, Lewontin, and Levins and the connection of Marxian philosophy with the findings of late 20th Century paleontology and evolutionary biology are well summarized in the middle chapters of this book. If you are not familiar with this connection, which I think is more concisely put forward in Alan Woods and Ted Grant's Reason in Revolt, then I would definitely recommend this book.
The first and last chapters, and various minor passages throughout the middle, are, however, excellent summaries of the basic arguments and goals of creationist and so-called "intelligent design" commentators. These are definitely worth reading. Also, chapters 3 and 4 represent a pretty good history of materialist philosophy and its connection to scientific inquiry, spanning Epicurus through the Enlightment and onwards to Marx in chapter 5.
I give the book three stars, although for myself it was more of a two. I do so in recognition that many picking it up have not read other works on evolutionary biology, and therefore the "re-cap" chapters are probably appropriate for the book's target audience. Also, a note to GoodReads.com: this book actually has 201 pages, not 160.
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