David Berlinski
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| David Berlinski | |
| Born | 1942 New York City, USA |
|---|---|
| Residence | Paris, France |
| Occupation | Academic philosopher (Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University) |
| Title | Fellow at Center for Science and Culture |
| Religious beliefs | Agnostic |
David Berlinski (born 1942 in New York City) is an American educator and author of books on mathematics. He is a leading critic of evolution within the intelligent design movement and author of numerous articles on the topic.[1] Berlinski is a secular Jew and agnostic, and according to a 2008 Slate magazine profile "a critic, a contrarian, and — by his own admission — a crank [...and] zealous skeptic, more concerned with false gods than real ones."[2]
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[edit] Biography
David Berlinski was born to Jewish-German refugees from Nazi Germany who immigrated to New York City, and German was his first spoken language.[3] He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University[4] and was later a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University. He has taught philosophy, mathematics, and English at Stanford, Rutgers, the City University of New York, the University of Washington, the University of Puget Sound, San Jose State University, the University of Santa Clara, the University of San Francisco, and San Francisco State University.
He has also taught mathematics at the Université de Paris. He has been a research fellow at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHES) in France. He currently lives in Paris.
He has written works on systems analysis, the history of differential topology, theoretical biology, analytic philosophy, and the philosophy of mathematics. Berlinski is best known for his books on mathematics and the history of mathematics written for the general public. These include A Tour of the Calculus (1997) on calculus, The Advent of the Algorithm (2000) on algorithms, Newton's Gift (2000) on Isaac Newton, and Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics (2005). Another book, The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky (2003), compares astrological and evolutionary accounts of human behavior.
Speaking about his early career, Berlinski said he "got fired from almost every job [he] ever had" before finding a career as a writer and, in the words of David Engber of Slate Magazine, a "maverick intellectual."[2]
He is the author of several detective novels starring private investigator Aaron Asherfeld: Less Than Meets the Eye, The Body Shop and A Clean Sweep, and a number of shorter works of fiction and non-fiction.
Slate magazine reporter Daniel Engber describes Berlinski's writing on math and science as "characterized by a peculiar, mischievous style: Berlinski mixes long, discursive explanations with strange asides, historical re-enactments, and ironic fables; every page is caked over with elaborate metaphors." Some reviewers, including Engber himself, are "dazzled, if not exactly charmed, by his excess", however others (such as Slate's Jordan Ellenberg) "are not so moved."[2]
[edit] Intelligent design
An outspoken critic of evolution, Berlinski is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, a Seattle-based think-tank that is hub of the intelligent design movement. Berlinski shares the movement's disbelief in the evidence for evolution, but does not openly avow intelligent design and describes his relationship with the idea as: "warm but distant. It's the same attitude that I display in public toward my ex-wives."[2] Berlinski is a scathing critic of "Darwinism", yet, "Unlike his colleagues at the Discovery Institute, [he] refuses to theorize about the origin of life." [2]
Berlinski's viewpoint has been described as:[2]
Berlinski's radical and often wrong-headed skepticism represents an ascendant style in the popular debate over American science: Like the recent crop of global-warming skeptics, AIDS denialists, and biotech activists, Berlinski uses doubt as a weapon against the academy—he's more concerned with what we don't know than what we do. He uses uncertainty to challenge the scientific consensus; he points to the evidence that isn't there and seeks out the things that can't be proved. In its extreme and ideological form, this contrarian approach to science can turn into a form of paranoia—a state of permanent suspicion and outrage. But Berlinski is hardly a victim of the style. He's merely its most methodical practitioner.
– Daniel Engber, A Crank's Progress, Slate Magazine[2]
Though the Discovery Institute portrays Berlinski as a scholarly writer and mathematician,[5] Mark Perakh, a critic of the intelligent design movement, contends that Berlinski's writings are not scientific, but popular, and that Berlinski "has no known record of his own contribution to the development of mathematics or of any other science."[6]
Berlinski, along with fellow Discovery Institute associates Michael Behe and William A. Dembski, tutored Ann Coulter on science and evolution for her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism.[7] Approximately one-third of the book is devoted to polemical attacks on evolution, which Coulter, as Berlinski often does, terms "Darwinism."
Berlinski was a longtime friend of the late Marcel-Paul Schützenberger (1920-1996), with whom he collaborated on an unfinished and unpublished mathematical polemic that he described as being "devoted to the Darwinian theory of evolution."[8] Berlinski dedicated The Advent of the Algorithm to Schutzenberger.
In The Deniable Darwin, Berlinski raises the following objections to evolution:[9]
- the appearance "at once" of an astonishing number of novel biological structures in the Cambrian explosion;
- the lack of major transitional fossils transitional sequences thereafter;
- the lack of recent significant evolution in sharks;
- the evolution of the eye, particularly the value of 'part of an eye';
- the purported failure of evolutionary biology to explain a range of phenomena ranging from the sexual cannibalism of redback spiders to why women are not born with a tail.
In responding to Berlinski's arguments, marine biologist Wesley R. Elsberry comments: "I personally like my 'at onces' to refer to events significantly shorter than ten million years."[10]
Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education described Berlinski's arguments in The Deniable Darwin as:[11]
. . . The content of David Berlinski's article does not differ from more traditional creation-science material, though his tone is more genteel and his writing a lot more literate. . . . But true to the creation-science genre, his approach consists of constructing strawmen, then knocking them down with misinterpreted, faulty, or nonexistent data as well as carefully se-lected quotations from evolutionary scientists. . . .
[edit] Books
- The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, (Crown Forum, 2008), ISBN 0-307-39626-6
- Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics, 2005, ISBN 0-679-64234-X
- The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky: Astrology and the Art of Prediction, 2003, ISBN 0-15-100527-3
- The Advent of the Algorithm: The 300-Year Journey from an Idea to the Computer, (Harcourt, 2001), ISBN 0-15-601391-6
- The Advent of the Algorithm: The Idea that Rules the World, (Harcourt, 2000), ISBN 0-15-100338-6
- Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World, 2000, ISBN 0-684-84392-7
- A Tour of the Calculus, 1996, ISBN 0-679-42645-0
- Black Mischief, 1986, ISBN 0-688-04404-2
[edit] References
- ^ Discovery Institute article database for David Berlinski
- ^ a b c d e f g The Paranoid Style in American Science: A Crank's Progress, Daniel Engber, Slate magazine, April 15, 2008
- ^ Is the Big Bang Just a Big Hoax? David Berlinski Challenges Everyone
- ^ Berlinksi, David, The Well-tempered Wittgenstein, Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1968,
- ^ "Paris-based writer David Berlinski, a mathematician and microbiologist skeptical of both Darwinism and ID." [1] "David Berlinski, a mathematician with post-doctoral training in molecular biology. (Berlinksi’s scholarly article in the February issue of Commentary will prove an unpleasant read for evolutionists.)" [2]
- ^ "The main proponents of Intelligent Design, however, while being very active and loud in asserting their anti-evolution views, have so far produced no genuine scientific results related to their ID theory. Most of them, with a few exceptions, have produced very little of anything scientific in general. For example, David Berlinski, usually referred to as a mathematician, has authored popular books on mathematics, and papers against evolution, but has no known record of his own contribution to the development of mathematics or of any other science." Scientists Respond to the Orchestrated Assault of IDists on Professor Gross Mark Perakh. Science Insights, a publication of the National Association of Scholars, September 2003
- ^ Coulter, Ann, Godless: The Church of Liberalism. From the book jacket: "I couldn't have written about evolution without the generous tutoring of Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and William Dembski, all of whom are fabulous at translating complex ideas, unlike liberal arts types, who constantly force me to the dictionary to relearn the meaning of quotidian."
- ^ Wilf, Herbert et al., "In Memoriam: Marcel-Paul Schützenberger, 1920-1996," Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, served from University of Pennsylvania Dept. of Mathematics Server, article dated 12 October 1996, retrieved from WWW on 4 November 2006.
- ^ The Deniable Darwin, David Berlinski, COMMENTARY, VOL. 101, June 1996 No. 6
- ^ But Is It Deception? "The Deniable Darwin" examined..., Wesley R. Elsberry
- ^ Letters from Readers, Commentary Magazine, September 1996
