Some left-wing critics of the Darwinian theory of evolution have
explicitly criticised it for being a transliteration into the realm of
biology of a capitalist model of competitive struggle (and an attempt
to legitimate that model, by granting it a kind of naturalist
inevitability). As I say, I bet Social Text (targets of the Sokal hoax
- read: publication of drastically diminished credibility) published a
few articles by people who subscribed to that viewpoint, or something
like it.
I guess the point Steven was gesturing towards about Intelligent
Design, vis-a-vis "Bush" and "Iraq", is that it tries to introduce
some notion of Providence into the workings of evolutionary history,
and that the neo-con project in Iraq similarly tries to inscribe some
notion of Providence (in the form of American Freedom (TM), which
according to one popular reading of PNAC is believed by the neo-cons
to be manifestly destined to spread throughout the globe, speeded upon
its mission by the projection of an unchallengable military
superiority) into geopolitical history. Both would be wilfully
ignorant of the "facts on the ground": on the one hand the
improvidence, the boundless loss and waste, of evolution, and on the
other...well, we know all about the manifold inconveniences to which
Operation Iraqi Freedom has been subject.
What I wanted to say in reply was that most political ideologies
involve some form of providential narrative, and that PNAC is not
uniquely foolish or wicked in that regard (however foolish and wicked
it may be in other respects). It isn't just swaggering theocratic
buffoons who go in for that sort of thing, or who are hostile to a
theory that shows how - in the domain of biology at least - history
can get by perfectly well without either an inevitable final
destination (besides the obvious...) or a guiding or helping hand to
ensure that it arrives there. Think Lamarkism as Soviet state
scientific doctrine.
In general, I would agree that parallels between biological theory and
social reality are at best tendentious, although information theory
and game theory can form a kind of bridge between them.
Dominic
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