#55798: — 12/31  at  10:00 AM
Thanks for the links - hadn't read anything of Fuller's before. Looks like another of that familiar type who sees his difficulty in distinguishing between different types of ideas as a virtue that allows him to think "interdisciplinarily" - in other words, fuzzily and insufficiently critically.

(NB this is not a criticism of people whose work really is interdisciplinary.)

#55801: — 12/31  at  11:18 AM
"Percy: (finally begins to grasp) Yes, My Lord."

I'm not sure Fuller is as bright as Percy.

#55802: — 12/31  at  11:18 AM
Speaking of "interdisciplinary", we now have Paul making sports analogies ..

There's a new linebacker piling on, though

Will wonders never cease.

Trying to work in a little local vernacular in preparation for that run for political office, PZ?!

#55803: PZ Myers — 12/31  at  11:23 AM
That is shocking. I better not do it anymore.

#55805: Ophelia Benson — 12/31  at  11:28 AM
I hope we don't really agree Fuller has had enough attention lately, because I think B&W is going to have an article on him by pretty much the ideal person to do such an article. I say I 'think' because ideal person is very busy person, so I don't want to express certainty until the article is in the Inbox. But if it arrives it should be a doozy.

#55806: — 12/31  at  11:31 AM
'Tis harmless; unlike that twadle that Fuller is spouting.

#55807: — 12/31  at  11:32 AM
OB, I look forward to it with great relish.

#55808: — 12/31  at  11:50 AM
Why, this Fuller appears to be a perfectly reasonable fellow. He honestly think that ID could be another view of the world which he feels very confortable with. There is nothing wrong with that. The counter argument here is that honest and often christian scientist have already worked on the question of what fossils are, what is the age of the earth, how speciation occurs... So far the answer is evolution theory and I am very tempted to call revisionnism this urge they have to apparently look for other theories, or rather to confirm their own preconceived idea.

#55809: — 12/31  at  11:53 AM
In fact, I wonder why it is so difficult to let them be and just wait for them to get the next IgNobel prize. There is some junk science around.

It might be because the debate is not within the scientific community but in the media....

#55811: Matthew McIrvin — 12/31  at  12:17 PM
Hmm... If the textbooks do say that Darwin's faith was shaken primarily by evolution, Carl Zimmer says they're wrong; it had more to do with his difficulty in reconciling the sad events of his own life with the existence of a benevolent God.

#55815: — 12/31  at  02:57 PM
Since I've paid some attention to intelligent design I've come up with a couple new rules: 1. Don't pay attention to anyone's controversial ideas about science if they haven't actually done some science, and 2. Don't pay attention to anyone's controversial scientific ideas about a topic if he hasn't done work on other topics too. (For example, PZ is really more interesting on several other topics than he is on ID and creationaism).

Of course, this invalidates my ideas about science, but that's as it should be.

It's just been striking how people have been taking something as hands-on as biology and making it into an armchair discussion topic.

#55822: coturnix — 12/31  at  06:06 PM
I love Black Adder! I just mentioned it yesterday in one of those 4 questions memes. I used to have a boxed set of the complete series, but sold it when I was short on money a couple of years ago. I still miss it. Is it on DVD now?

#55827: — 12/31  at  06:19 PM
There is exactly one thing to like about Fuller- he wrote a book about Popper and Kuhn in which he gave Kuhn a sound, well-deserved thrashing. Set a thief to catch a thief, so to speak.

#55847: — 01/01  at  02:43 AM

Lord Percy Fuller wrote:

…Newton presented his mathematical physics as the divine plan that was implicitly written into the Bible. He clearly thought he had got into God’s mind. In contrast, Darwin pursued the humbler path of William Paley’s analogy of nature’s order being like a watch found on a beach, which implied the existence of a watchmaker.

Heath! Heath! Paley imagines finding a watch on a heath not some damned beach. Fuller can't even get that right.

#55865: Keith Douglas — 01/01  at  09:42 AM
Kuhn may have been thrashed by Fuller, but IIRC Mario Bunge showed (on purely sematicological grounds) more than 30 years earlier that the strongest form of the Kuhnian thesis is mistaken. (See his Scientific Research)

#55876: — 01/01  at  12:03 PM
Coturnix: Yes.

#55887: coturnix — 01/01  at  02:20 PM
Rowan: Thank you!