Science Vs Religion?
In 2007, Fuller wrote
Science Vs Religion?: Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution. In addition to introductory and conclusionary chapters, it has chapters on the history of the relationship between religion and science, the thesis that that modern science has its basis in an attempt by humanity to transcend itself and reach God, how Fuller believes complexity distinguishes ID from "other versions of creationism", legal issues, and the future of "Darwinism".
Professor of mathematics at Rutgers University, Norman Levitt in a review described it as "a truly miserable piece of work, crammed with errors scientific, historical, and even theological". Levitt took issue with the following points:
- Fuller's acceptance at face value of William Dembski's claims on complexity and randomness, and his failure to come to grips with the wealth of results that this field has generated and with the trenchant criticism of Dembski's claims (or even to describe these claims accurately);
- Fuller's disparagement of evolutionary biology, without doing "serious analysis of the working methods and logical structure of biology itself" on which to base it;
- Fuller's misrepresentation of Isaac Newton's religious beliefs in order to make a point that is in fact antithetical to Newton's views;
Levitt infers that Fuller's views arise from an "animosity to science as such and to its cognitive authority [that] still pervades academic life outside the dominion of the science faculty".Fuller later responded to these points, accusing Levitt of axe-grinding and questioning his understanding of the book, which Fuller claimed was less a defense of contemporary intelligent design theory than a demonstration of its rootedness in the history of science. Fuller also notes that Levitt actually misquotes one of only three passages Levitt cites from the book, making it mean the opposite of the original. Levitt subsequently responded at length to Fuller, concluding that "Fuller’s misreading of the politics that generated and sustains the ID movement is so complete as to constitute a peculiar pathology all its own." Fuller has long been highly critical of the views of science of his opponents in the Science Wars, including Levitt, dating back at least to 1994.
Sahotra Sarkar, a philosophy professor and integrative biologist at the University of Texas at Austin also criticised Fuller's book for the following for presenting an "analysis of the intellectual disputes over contemporary ID creationism [that] is almost vacuous". In addition, the book has an idiosyncratic interpretation of the history of philosophy, including of Kant, and of logical positivism; having a limited grasp of the history of science, including making claims about Newton, Cuvier, Agassiz, Lamarck, Mendel, Pearson and Galton that are not supported by their writings; failure to engage the "debate over naturalism that ID creationism has generated" with "remarks on supernaturalism [that show] him to be equally non-cognizant of the work of ... Philip Johnson"; and other scientific errors.
Science vs. Religion? is now translated into Polish.
Dissent Over Descent
In 2008 Fuller's book on the intelligent design controversy,
Dissent Over Descent: Intelligent Design's Challenge to Darwinism was published. Steven Poole of The Guardian wrote: "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." Michael Ruse, Philosopher of Science at University of New Brunswick wrote in the journal
Science that Fuller's book "is completely wrong and is backed by no sound scholarship whatsoever. In at least one case, Fuller makes his case by an egregious misreading...of something I wrote about the role of genetic drift in Sewall Wright's shifting balance theory. For the record, Charles Darwin set out to provide a cause, what he called...following his mentors like William Whewell (who in turn referred back to Newton)...a true cause or
vera causa. Darwin felt, and historians and philosophers of science as well as practicing evolutionary biologists still feel, that he succeeded" In a "book of the week" review by retired Divinity Professor Keith Ward in the
Times Higher Education Supplement, the book was praised for providing often overlooked information and provocative interpretations, but was criticised for a number of inaccuracies and misrepresentations.
A. C. Grayling, in New Humanist, wrote that the book contains a "mark of ignorance and historical short-sightedness on Fuller’s part". In response, Fuller wrote an online response saying "if Grayling’s grasp of the history of science went beyond head-banging standards, he would realise that our current level of scientific achievement would never have been reached, and more importantly that we would not be striving to achieve more, had chance-based explanations dominated over the design-based ones in our thinking about reality." To which Grayling wrote: "Steve Fuller complains, as do all authors whose books are panned, that I did not read his book properly (or at all)." He continued, "I'll take on Fuller any day regarding the history and theology of the various versions of Christianity with which humanity has been burdened. [] The same applies to the history of science."