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

243 Pages·2008·3 MB·English

by  John Bellamy Foster

Praise for Critique of Intelligent Design
Finally we have a book on so-called ‘intelligent design’ that gets to the heart
of the matter rather than devoting all its energies to a point by point refuta¬
tion of that doctrine. While providing a sophisticated modern understand¬
ing of the complexities of organisms and the biological processes that have
resulted in life as it has evolved, the authors of Critique of Intelligent Design
never lose sight of the real issue which is the struggle between materialism
and supernaturalism as an explanation for the world of phenomena. Theirs
is the model on which all discussions of intelligent design should be based.
—Richard Lewontin, Alexander Agassiz Research Professor at the
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University; co-author of Biology
Under the Influence (Monthly Review Press) and The Dialectical Biologist
(both with Richard Levins)
The intelligent design creationist movement’s attack on the natural sciences
has been thoroughly critiqued and rightly rejected. However, the move¬
ment’s attempt to undermine the social sciences as well has been largely
overlooked. This book fills that void by offering a thoughtful, well­
researched discussion of the major figures—besides Darwin himself—
whom ID creationists demonize: Epicurus, Marx, and Freud. Moreover, by
analyzing C. S. Lewies influence on the ID movement’s leaders, the
authors further expose ID as essentially an exercise in Christian apologet¬
ics. This is an excellent book. It adds to the growing body of critical writ¬
ing about intelligent design creationism.
—BARBARA Forrest,a key witness on the side of evolution in the landmark
Dover, PA trial; professor of philosophy, Southeastern Louisiana University;
co-author of Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (with
Paul R. Gross)
A discerning historical reconstruction, which succeeds in illuminating the
broad anti-materialist agenda underlying the intelligent design movement.
—David SEDLEY, Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of
Cambridge, UK; author of Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity
A scholarly and compelling book showing intelligent design to be an anti­
Enlightenment project—and one full of illusion, superstition, and hidden
reactionary agendas. Anyone interested in science and reason rather than
fairy tales about a Celestial Designer should get hold of a copy. So too should
educators intending to force intelligent design onto their pupils.
—PETER Dickens, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of
Cambridge, UK; author of Society and Nature
Debates about religion and science are back on the table. After numerous
attacks on modern science from the creationist or ‘intelligent design’ side,
there has been a counterattack coming from a few natural scientists and mate¬
rialist philosophers. What was missing and what this book provides is an
enlightened Marxist perspective. Through a clear presentation of the works
of Epicurus, Lucretius, Hume, Feuerbach, Marx, Darwin, Freud, Lewontin,
and Gould, as well as of their adversaries, the authors provide a fascinating
history of the long struggle between scientific and materialist thought on the
one hand and religion and various forms of idealism on the other—probably
the most significant issues over which humans have been arguing throughout
their recorded history.
—Jean BriCMONT, professor of theoretical physics, University of Louvain,
Belgium; author of Humanitarian Imperialism (Monthly Review Press) and
co-author of Fashionable Nonsense (with Alan Sokal)
With Epicurus and Darwin among its heroes, this book is a timely exposure
of the creationist dogmatism that the intelligent design movement seeks to
disguise as science.
—A. A. Long, professor of Classics and Irving Stone Professor of Literature,
University of California, Berkeley; author of Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics,
Epicureans, Sceptics
In combating the new creationism repackaged as intelligent design, it is not
enough to refute particular misunderstandings about chance, complexity, or
natural selection. ID is part of an offensive against materialism and humanism
aimed at imposing a Christian fundamentalist culture congruent with the
needs of a declining empire. Critique of Intelligent Design places the debate
in its broadest context and historical roots from Epicurus on up, in a vigor¬
ous defense of a materialist view of nature that rejects the tepid compromise
that would simply divide the turf into domains of science and religion.
—RICHARD Levins ,John Rock Professor of Population Science, Department
of Population and International Health, Harvard University; co-author of
Biology Under the Influence (Monthly Review Press) and The Dialectical
Biologist (both with Richard Lewontin)
Materialism versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present
John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York
MONTHLY REVIEW PRESS
New York
Copyright © 2008 by MONTHLY REVIEW PRESS
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Foster, John Bellamy.
Critique of intelligent design : materialism versus creationism from
antiquity to the present / John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard
York.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-58367-173-3 (pbk.) - ISBN 978-1-58367-174-0 (hardback)
1. Intelligent design (Teleology) 2. Creationism. 3. Materialism. I.
Clark, Brett. II. York, Richard. III. Title.
BS651.F715 2008
146’.3-dc22
2008036623
Monthly Review Press
146 West 29th Street, Suite 6W
New York, NY 10001
5 4 3 2
Preface 7
CONTENTS
1. Introduction 9
2. The Wedge Strategy 31
3. Epicurus’s Swerve 49
4. Enlightenment Materialism and Natural Theology 65
5. Marx’s Critique of Heaven and Critique of Earth 83
6. On the Origin of Darwinism 105
7. Freud and the Illusions of Religion 131
8. In Defense of Natural Science 153
9. RNeplaoyingt tehe Tsap e 2of L0ife 3169
10. The End of the Wedge 181
Index 233

Preface
The intelligent design movement, which arose in the United States
in the 1990s and quickly obtained headlines through its challenge
to the teaching of evolution in the public schools, sees itself as the
outgrowth of a 2,500-year critique of materialism dating back to
the ancient Greeks. Our intent in this short book is to look at this
same debate from the opposite point of view, by providing a brief
account of the 2,500-year materialist critique of intelligent design
(creationism) out of which the modern scientific worldview
emerged. This millennia-long controversy within Western thought
is examined as it bears on social science as well as natural science,
philosophy as well as religion, and the state (politics) as well as the
church.
Numerous recent attempts to respond to the intelligent design
movement have sought to forge an artificial peace between science
and religion. Yet the conflict between religion and science, which
the intelligent design movement brought to the fore, is, we will con¬
tend, insurmountable within the present society. Religious alien¬
ation, i.e., alienation from the world, is a reflection of human alien¬
ation, as is the alienation of science, when conceived as a mere
instrument of domination. Both are equally necessary to the pres¬
ent structure of power. The only way to transcend this dual
CRITIQUE OF INTELLIGENT DESIGN
estrangement is to create through social means a broader material¬
ism-humanism, in which a sustainable relation to nature, i.e., a
lived naturalism, is the first precondition. To achieve this, however,
we will have to change our relation to the world, making it our
friend.
This book, more even than most, is a social product, involving
our family, friends, and colleagues. Our argument, which devel¬
oped over several years, had its first manifestation in a public lec¬
ture by Brett Clark, delivered at a number of universities in 2005-6,
and then in an article, co-authored by the three of us, in Theory &
Society in 2007.1 We would like to thank the editors of Theory &
Society, especially Karen Lucas, for their help and support at this
earlier stage of work. We are also grateful to our friends at Monthly
Review for their encouragement, including John Mage, Martin
Paddio, John Simon, Michael Yates, Claude Misukiewicz, and
Scott Borchert. It is impossible to imagine the present work apart
from the inspiration offered by Carrie Ann Naumoff, Kris Shields,
and Theresa Koford, through their own struggles on behalf of edu¬
cation, human welfare, and life in general—from which this book
derives much of its practical meaning. Finally, we would like to
acknowledge, in the persons of Saul and Ida Foster and Arthur and
Galen York, a generation of students in public education, to all of
whom, and to the hope for the world that they represent, this book
is dedicated.