Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present

by John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, Richard York

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 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.

Genres: Science, Philosophy, Religion, History, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2008

About the author

John Bellamy Foster is a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, editor of Monthly Review and author of several books on the subject of political economy of capitalism, economic crisis, ecology and ecological crisis, and Marxist theory.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of this book is a bit of a misnomer, as the focus is less about Intelligent Design Creationism per se, and more about the subtitle: the historical opposition and struggle between materialism and creationism/supernaturalism as organizing philosophies.

The historical aspects of this book are especially good. Foster and his co-authors trace this conflict all the way back to Epicurus, and I think their basic argument – that this conflict is actually important and intractable – makes more sense than that of the "It's Complicated" crowd, where any and all conflict must be nuanced into confusion and impossibility.

Anyway, I read this during a particularly stressful time of the semester, so unfortunately, I can't remember as much of it as I'd like, but I do remember enjoying it and being surprised that a book with so many authors somehow manages to maintain a sense of unity and cohesion.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for a book club and was not originally interested in the topic. But the book is more than the first half of its title. The book explains the centuries long battle between materialism and idealism and focuses on refuting arguments that the Intelligent Design supporters apply to Epicurus, Darwin, Marx and Freud. I wish the book did more to explain how belief and materialism can mean more freedom and possibilities for human kind and especially for our planet. It certainly accomplishes its goals.

[Craig Jorgensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly a history of the long conflict between the materialistic and religious view of the world. But read the first and last chapters to get an understandiing of the frightening agenda of the inelligent design community who have goals far beyond the desire to undermine the teaching of evolution

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though but a quick read, this polemic against the Intelligent Design (ID) idea is full of its own novel ideas, and is eye-opening in its argument that ID is not merely an attack on evolution, but also on science, and on Reason and the Enlightenment. By addressing each of the ID movement's multiple bugbears (from Epicurus to Freud, with Darwin as just a pitstop) this slim volume ends up being a brief recap of humanist and materialist philosophy in Western Civ. That the authors have a specifically Marxist ideology peeps out every now and then, but is most noticeable in its rarity and awkwardness.