David Berlinski

{{crenav|1}}
'''David Berlinski''' is an [[United States|American]] philosopher and [[intelligent design]] advocate. He is a senior fellow at the [[Discovery Institute]]'s Center for Science and Culture.<ref>[http://www.discovery.org/p/51 David Berlinski, Senior Fellow - CSC]</ref> He has also written on mathematics, including a rather well-received introduction to calculus, though his books “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. It is worth noting that his books on mathematics are popular books. Although often referred to as a “mathematician”, Berlinski has done no research in mathematics.<ref> Mark Perakh, “The assault of ID advocates on Professor Gross's essay is poorly substantiated,” part of [http://www.talkreason.org/articles/SI_Resp.cfm Scientists Respond to the Orchestrated Assault of IDists on Professor Gross], December 4, 2003.</ref> He has also written several books of fiction.

He claims to be a secular [[Judaism|Jew]] and [[agnostic]], and denies that he is an advocate of intelligent design but rather claims to be a [[skeptic]] on the matter of [[evolution]]. However, his articles and books are filled with religiously-based [[creationist]] arguments.<ref>[http://www.2think.org/letters.shtml Denying Darwin ]</ref> Although he officially refuses to speculate about the origins of life, critics argue that he is pretty obviously a shill for [[intelligent design]].<ref>Ronald Numbers (1998). Darwinism Comes to America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 20</ref> Berlinski is a signatory to [[A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism]].

==Intelligent Design==
In his 1996 article “The Deniable Darwin”, Berlinski lays out several reasons for his skepticism of evolution,<ref>Berlinski (1996), [http://www.rae.org/pdf/dendar.pdf the article in pdf version].</ref> These include 
*[[Cambrian explosion|the appearance “at once” of an astonishing number of novel biological structures in the Cambrian explosion]], to which Wesley Elsberry commented that “I personally like my 'at onces' to refer to events significantly shorter than ten million years.”
*the lack of major [[transitional fossil]]s and transitional sequences
*the lack of recent significant evolution in sharks
*the [http://evolutionwiki.org/wiki/The_eye_is_too_complex_to_have_evolved 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. As Arthur Shapiro points out, Berlinski “wants evolutionary biologists to explain from first principles why one species of widow spider commits sexual suicide while another does not,” knowing perfectly well that “the chain of causes is too long, with too many opportunities for historical contingency to operate, for anyone with less than the omniscience of the deity to do that.”
The article elicited a number of responses from real scientists,<ref>[http://www.2think.org/letters.shtml Letters from Readers] in response to “Denying Darwin”].</ref> and was described by [[Daniel Dennett]] as “another hilarious demonstration that you can publish bullshit at will – just so long as you say what an editorial board wants to hear in a style it favors.” [[Eugenie Scott]] described Berlinski's arguments thus:
{{cquote|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 selected quotations from evolutionary scientists.}}

In his appearance in [[Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed]] he told [[Ben Stein]] that “Darwinism is not a sufficient condition for a phenomenon like Nazism but I think it's certainly a necessary one,” apparently because race-based genocide had never happened before ''The Origin of Species''.

Berlinski, along with fellow Discovery Institute associates [[Michael Behe]] and [[William Dembski]], tutored [[Ann Coulter]] on “science and evolution” for her book ''[[Godless: The Church of Liberalism]]''. According to the credit section: “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.” Of course, Coulter was in absolutely no position to write about science after their tutelage either.<ref group=note>She called the theory of evolution "the flatulent raccoon theory", and failed to exhibit even the most cursory understanding of it. Some of her points are discussed in [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/06/18/ann-coulter-no-evidence-for-ev/ this post], Pharyngula, post from June 18, 2006.</ref>

One of Berlinski’s main argument strategies is to name-drop people, in particular mathematicians, who were allegedly skeptical of evolution.<ref>Good math, Bad math, [http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2009/11/09/berlinski-still-pompous-stil/ Post from November 9, 2009]</ref> He is rarely able to document any skepticism of evolution from the people he mentions, but claims to have heard about their skepticism from his friends, who may have met some of them.

[[PZ Myers]] has summed up Berlinski as a bad case of delusional narcissism.<ref>Pharyngula, [http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/03/07/david-berlinski-trs-creepy/ Blogpost from July 3, 2007]</ref> 

===The enumerative “cows cannot evolve into whales” argument===
One of Berlinski’s most celebrated anti-evolution arguments is his calculation that at least 50,000 changes were required to change a cow into a whale (he stopped counting). Of course, since even if he was capable of listing out these differences at an implausibly fast average rate of one every ten seconds, it would still take more than 5 days of non-stop 24h-hour activity to accomplish this, few believe that he actually did what he claimed to have done.<ref> The Bad Idea Blog, [http://badidea.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/berlinksi-whales-and-why-intelligent-design-cant-get-no-respect/ post from August 29, 2007]</ref> Berlinski does not, of course, know anything about the [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/4/l_034_05.html evolution of whales], missing such rather central details as the fact that cows did not evolve into whales.<ref>Sandwalk, [http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2007/08/cows-into-whales.html Post from August, 2007].</ref>

==Anti-evolution books by David Berlinski==
*''The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky'' (2003), which compares astrological and evolutionary accounts of human behavior.
*''The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions'' (2008), which is a defense of religion asserting that atheists misrepresent science, that an objective morality requires a religious foundation, that mathematical theories attempting to bring together quantum mechanics and relativity amount to pseudoscience, and that evolutionary theory is doubtful. It's filled with [[ad hominem]]s and [[strawman argument]]s, without even a single citation.
*''Deniable Darwin & Other Essays'' (2009)

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

{{crebox|1}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berlinski, David}}

[[Category:Authors]]
[[Category:Intelligent design creationism]]
[[Category:Jews]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Discovery Institute]]

Categories: Authors, Intelligent design creationism, Jews, Living people, Discovery Institute