David Berlinski
Encyclopedia
David Berlinski is an American educator and author of several books on mathematics
. Berlinski is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture
, the hub of the intelligent design movement
. Though he criticizes the theory of evolution, Berlinski who is an agnostic, refuses to theorize about the origins of life. He has also written on philosophy
and a variety of fictional works.
in 1942 to German-born Jewish
refugees who had immigrated to New York City
after escaping from France
as the Vichy government
was collaborating
with the Germans
. His father was Herman Berlinski
, the noted American composer
, organist
, pianist
, musicologist
and choir
conductor
, and his mother was Sina Berlinski (née Goldfein), an American pianist, piano teacher
and voice coach
. Both were born and raised in Leipzig
where they studied at the Conservatory, before fleeing to Paris
where they were married and undertook further studies. German
was David Berlinski's first spoken language. He received his Ph.D.
in philosophy from Princeton University
.
at Columbia University
, and was 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 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
, San Francisco State University
, and taught mathematics at the Université de Paris.
, the history of differential topology
, analytic philosophy
, and the philosophy of mathematics
. Berlinski has authored books for the general public on mathematics
and the history of mathematics
. These include A Tour of the Calculus (1997) on calculus
, The Advent of the Algorithm (2000) on algorithm
s, 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. In Black Mischief, Berlinski wrote “Our paper became a monograph. When we had completed the details, we rewrote everything so that no one could tell how we came upon our ideas or why. This is the standard in mathematics.”
Berlinski's books have received mixed reviews; Newton's Gift and The Advent of the Algorithm, his only two books to be reviewed on MathSciNet, were criticized for containing historical and mathematical inaccuracies while the Mathematical Association of America
review of A Tour of the Calculus recommended that professors have students read the book to appreciate the overarching historical and philosophical picture of calculus.
and William A. Dembski
, tutored Ann Coulter
on science and evolution for her book 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."
Berlinski was a longtime friend of the late Marcel-Paul Schützenberger
(1920–1996), with whom he collaborated on an unfinished and unpublished mathematically-based manuscript that he described as being "devoted to the Darwinian theory of evolution." Berlinski dedicated The Advent of the Algorithm to Schutzenberger.
, 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." Berlinski is a scathing critic of "Darwinism", yet, "Unlike his colleagues at the Discovery Institute, [he] refuses to theorize about the origin of life."
Berlinski appeared in the 2008 film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
, in which he told interviewer Ben Stein
that
"Darwinism is not a sufficient condition for a phenomenon like Nazism but I think it's certainly a necessary one." He also says
In his 1996 article, The Deniable Darwin, published in Commentary magazine
, Berlinski says he is skeptical of evolution
for a number of reasons, including the appearance "at once" of an astonishing number of novel biological structures in the Cambrian explosion
, the lack of major transitional fossils transitional sequences, the lack of recent significant evolution in sharks, the evolution of the eye
, and (in his view) the 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. The article was described by historian of science Ronald L. Numbers as "a version of ID theory", and was ridiculed by philosopher Daniel Dennett
as "another hilarious demonstration that you can publish bull—t at will—just so long as you say what an editorial board wants to hear in a style it favors."
Berlinski is a secular Jew and agnostic. Berlinski's views towards criticism of religious belief can be found in his latest book, entitled "Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions". In summary, he asserts that some skeptical arguments against religious belief based on scientific evidence misrepresent what the science is actually saying, that an objective morality requires a religious foundation, that mathematical theories attempting to bring together quantum mechanics and relativity amount to pseudoscience because of their lack of empirical verifiability, and he expresses doubt towards the Darwinian variation of evolutionary theory.
, a contrarian
, and — by his own admission — a crank
[...and] zealous skeptic, more concerned with false gods than real ones." In that same article Berlinski said he "got fired from almost every job [he] ever had" before finding a career as a writer as a "maverick intellectual." Engber characterized Berlinski's viewpoints as:
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."
Responding to Berlinski's arguments concerning evolution, marine biologist
Wesley R. Elsberry
comments: "I personally like my 'at onces' to refer to events significantly shorter than ten million years." Eugenie Scott
, executive director of the National Center for Science Education
described Berlinski's arguments in The Deniable Darwin as:
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
. Berlinski is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture
Center for Science and Culture
The Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...
, the hub of the intelligent design movement
Intelligent design movement
The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...
. Though he criticizes the theory of evolution, Berlinski who is an agnostic, refuses to theorize about the origins of life. He has also written on philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and a variety of fictional works.
Early life
David Berlinski was born in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1942 to German-born Jewish
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
refugees who had immigrated to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
after escaping from France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
as the Vichy government
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
was collaborating
Collaboration during World War II
Within nations occupied by the Axis Powers, some citizens, driven by nationalism, ethnic hatred, anti-communism, anti-Semitism or opportunism, knowingly engaged in collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II...
with the Germans
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. His father was Herman Berlinski
Herman Berlinski
Herman Berlinski was a German-born American composer, organist, pianist, musicologist and choir conductor.-Family background; early upbringing:...
, the noted American composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, organist
Organist
An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists...
, pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
, musicologist
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
and choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
, and his mother was Sina Berlinski (née Goldfein), an American pianist, piano teacher
Piano pedagogy
Piano pedagogy is the study of the teaching of piano playing. Whereas the professional field of music education pertains to the teaching of music in school classrooms or group settings, piano pedagogy focuses on the teaching of musical skills to piano students on the level of the individual...
and voice coach
Vocal coach
A vocal coach is a music teacher who instructs singers on how to improve their singing technique, take care of and develop their voice, and prepare for the performance of a song or other work. Vocal coaches may give private music lessons to singers, or they may coach singers who are rehearsing on...
. Both were born and raised in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
where they studied at the Conservatory, before fleeing to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
where they were married and undertook further studies. German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
was David Berlinski's first spoken language. He received his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
in philosophy from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
.
Academic career
Berlinski was a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biologyMolecular biology
Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, and was a research fellow at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques
Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques
The Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques is a French institute supporting advanced research in mathematics and theoretical physics...
(IHES) in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. He has taught philosophy, mathematics, and English at Stanford, Rutgers, the City University of New York
City University of New York
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
, the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
, the University of Puget Sound
University of Puget Sound
The University of Puget Sound is a private liberal arts college located in the North End of Tacoma, Washington, in the United States...
, San Jose State University
San José State University
San Jose State University is a public university located in San Jose, California, United States...
, the University of Santa Clara, the University of San Francisco
University of San Francisco
The University of San Francisco , is a private, Jesuit/Catholic university located in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1855, USF was established as the first university in San Francisco. It is the second oldest institution for higher learning in California and the tenth-oldest university of...
, San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...
, and taught mathematics at the Université de Paris.
Mathematics and biology
Berlinski has written works on systems analysisSystems analysis
Systems analysis is the study of sets of interacting entities, including computer systems analysis. This field is closely related to requirements analysis or operations research...
, the history of differential topology
Differential topology
In mathematics, differential topology is the field dealing with differentiable functions on differentiable manifolds. It is closely related to differential geometry and together they make up the geometric theory of differentiable manifolds.- Description :...
, analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to dominate English-speaking countries in the 20th century...
, and the philosophy of mathematics
Philosophy of mathematics
The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. The aim of the philosophy of mathematics is to provide an account of the nature and methodology of mathematics and to understand the place of...
. Berlinski has authored books for the general public on mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and the history of mathematics
History of mathematics
The area of study known as the history of mathematics is primarily an investigation into the origin of discoveries in mathematics and, to a lesser extent, an investigation into the mathematical methods and notation of the past....
. These include A Tour of the Calculus (1997) on calculus
Calculus
Calculus is a branch of mathematics focused on limits, functions, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. This subject constitutes a major part of modern mathematics education. It has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus, which are related by the fundamental theorem...
, The Advent of the Algorithm (2000) on algorithm
Algorithm
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning...
s, Newton's Gift (2000) on Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
, and Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics (2005). Another book, The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky (2003), compares astrological
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
and evolutionary accounts of human behavior. In Black Mischief, Berlinski wrote “Our paper became a monograph. When we had completed the details, we rewrote everything so that no one could tell how we came upon our ideas or why. This is the standard in mathematics.”
Berlinski's books have received mixed reviews; Newton's Gift and The Advent of the Algorithm, his only two books to be reviewed on MathSciNet, were criticized for containing historical and mathematical inaccuracies while the Mathematical Association of America
Mathematical Association of America
The Mathematical Association of America is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure and applied mathematicians; computer scientists;...
review of A Tour of the Calculus recommended that professors have students read the book to appreciate the overarching historical and philosophical picture of calculus.
Collaborations
Berlinski, along with fellow Discovery Institute associates Michael BeheMichael Behe
Michael J. Behe is an American biochemist, author, and intelligent design advocate. He currently serves as professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and as a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture...
and William A. Dembski
William A. Dembski
William Albert "Bill" Dembski is an American proponent of intelligent design, well known for promoting the concept of specified complexity...
, tutored Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter
Ann Hart Coulter is an American lawyer, conservative social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist. She frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public events and private events...
on science and evolution for her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism
Godless: The Church of Liberalism
Godless: The Church of Liberalism is a book by best-selling author and conservative columnist Ann Coulter, published in 2006. The book is an argument against American liberalism, which Coulter regards as so anti-scientific and faith-based that it amounts to a "primitive religion" which she claims...
. 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."
Berlinski was a longtime friend of the late Marcel-Paul Schützenberger
Marcel-Paul Schützenberger
Marcel-Paul "Marco" Schützenberger was a French mathematician and Doctor of Medicine. His work had impact across the fields of formal language, combinatorics, and information theory...
(1920–1996), with whom he collaborated on an unfinished and unpublished mathematically-based manuscript that he described as being "devoted to the Darwinian theory of evolution." Berlinski dedicated The Advent of the Algorithm to Schutzenberger.
Fiction
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.Evolution
A critic of evolutionEvolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, Berlinski is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute's
Discovery Institute
The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...
Center for Science and Culture
Center for Science and Culture
The Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...
, a Seattle-based think-tank that is hub of the intelligent design movement
Intelligent design movement
The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...
. Berlinski shares the movement's disbelief in the evidence for evolution, but does not openly avow intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
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." Berlinski is a scathing critic of "Darwinism", yet, "Unlike his colleagues at the Discovery Institute, [he] refuses to theorize about the origin of life."
Berlinski appeared in the 2008 film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a 2008 documentary film, directed by Nathan Frankowski and hosted by Ben Stein. The film contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticize evidence supporting...
, in which he told interviewer Ben Stein
Ben Stein
Benjamin Jeremy "Ben" Stein is an American actor, writer, lawyer, and commentator on political and economic issues. He attained early success as a speechwriter for American presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford...
that
"Darwinism is not a sufficient condition for a phenomenon like Nazism but I think it's certainly a necessary one." He also says
It'd be nice to see the scientific establishment lose some of its prestige and power...Above all, it'd be nice to have a real spirit of self-criticism penetrating the sciences.
In his 1996 article, The Deniable Darwin, published in Commentary magazine
Commentary (magazine)
Commentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...
, Berlinski says he is skeptical of evolution
Objections to evolution
Objections to evolution have been raised since evolutionary ideas came to prominence in the 19th century. When Charles Darwin published his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, his theory of evolution by natural selection initially met opposition from scientists with different theories, but came to...
for a number of reasons, including the appearance "at once" of an astonishing number of novel biological structures in the Cambrian explosion
Cambrian explosion
The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the relatively rapid appearance, around , of most major phyla, as demonstrated in the fossil record, accompanied by major diversification of other organisms, including animals, phytoplankton, and calcimicrobes...
, the lack of major transitional fossils transitional sequences, the lack of recent significant evolution in sharks, the evolution of the eye
Evolution of the eye
The evolution of the eye has been a subject of significant study, as a distinctive example of a homologous organ present in a wide variety of taxa. Certain components of the eye, such as the visual pigments, appear to have a common ancestry – that is, they evolved once, before the animals radiated...
, and (in his view) the 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. The article was described by historian of science Ronald L. Numbers as "a version of ID theory", and was ridiculed by philosopher Daniel Dennett
Daniel Dennett
Daniel Clement Dennett is an American philosopher, writer and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. He is currently the Co-director of...
as "another hilarious demonstration that you can publish bull—t at will—just so long as you say what an editorial board wants to hear in a style it favors."
Berlinski is a secular Jew and agnostic. Berlinski's views towards criticism of religious belief can be found in his latest book, entitled "Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions". In summary, he asserts that some skeptical arguments against religious belief based on scientific evidence misrepresent what the science is actually saying, that an objective morality requires a religious foundation, that mathematical theories attempting to bring together quantum mechanics and relativity amount to pseudoscience because of their lack of empirical verifiability, and he expresses doubt towards the Darwinian variation of evolutionary theory.
Criticism
A 2008 Slate magazine profile by Daniel Engber characterized Berlinski as "a criticCritic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
, a contrarian
Contrarian
In finance, a contrarian is one who attempts to profit by investing in a manner that differs from the conventional wisdom, when the consensus opinion appears to be wrong....
, and — by his own admission — a crank
Crank (person)
"Crank" is a pejorative term used for a person who unshakably holds a belief that most of his or her contemporaries consider to be false. A "cranky" belief is so wildly at variance with commonly accepted belief as to be ludicrous...
[...and] zealous skeptic, more concerned with false gods than real ones." In that same article Berlinski said he "got fired from almost every job [he] ever had" before finding a career as a writer as a "maverick intellectual." Engber characterized Berlinski's viewpoints as:
Mark Perakh
Mark Perakh
Mark Perakh , born in in Kiev, Ukraine, is a professor emeritus of Mathematics and statistical mechanics at California State University, Fullerton in Fullerton, California....
, 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."
Responding to Berlinski's arguments concerning evolution, marine biologist
Marine biology
Marine biology is the scientific study of organisms in the ocean or other marine or brackish bodies of water. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies species based on the environment rather...
Wesley R. Elsberry
Wesley R. Elsberry
Dr. Wesley Royce Elsberry is a marine biologist with an interdisciplinary background in zoology, computer science, and wildlife and fisheries sciences. He has become involved in the creation-evolution controversy.- Biography :...
comments: "I personally like my 'at onces' to refer to events significantly shorter than ten million years." Eugenie Scott
Eugenie Scott
Eugenie Carol Scott is an American physical anthropologist who has been the executive director of the National Center for Science Education since 1987...
, executive director of the National Center for Science Education
National Center for Science Education
The National Center for Science Education is a non-profit organization based in Oakland, California affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It is the United States' leading anti-creationist organization, and defends the teaching of evolutionary biology and opposes...
described Berlinski's arguments in The Deniable Darwin as:
External links
- David Berlinski's Blog
- David Berlinski, Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute'sDiscovery InstituteThe Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...
Center for Science and CultureCenter for Science and CultureThe Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...
- Berlinski's articles listed at Discovery Institute
- Dr. David Berlinski: Introduction (22 clips on YouTube.com).
- Criticism of Berlinski's anti-evolution arguments