The Making of a Skeptic: David Berlinski’s Childhood

ENV: Were you always subversive? Tell us about the childhood David Berlinski.I am not sure that I would care to think of myself as subversive. It is a mole-and-badger kind of word, isn’t it? So long as we are searching for similes, I would prefer lion-like. Regal is another fine word.I was from an early age indisposed to accept what I had been told. Having been urged not to insert a fork into an electrical outlet, I stuck one in anyway; I was shocked to discover that it was a poor idea, just as my mother had maintained. An impatient child, I became a school yard terror, and a high-school bully. At the Bronx High School of Science I was Read More ›

Oklahoma’s Darwinists Are Freaked Out by Intelligent Design

For an idea that Darwinists say has no value, intelligent design still seems to captivate them a great deal. Darwinists in Oklahoma have their own list-serv which they use to make announcements, and currently are using to stir up more anti-ID animosity amongst evolutionary foot soldiers in the heartland. They’re all aflutter about the screening of Darwin’s Dilemma, and about Stephen Meyer’s lecture on ID at University of Oklahoma next week. Note this bit of bogus puffery: 2. AND ANOTHER DI INTELLIGENT DESIGN TALK AT OU!As part of the DI appearance on the OU campus Dr. Stephen C. Meyer will deliver a free lecture about his new book, Signature in the Cell: DNA and Evidence for Intelligent Design, at 7 Read More ›

Berlinski’s Back

For those who need a dose of urbane wit and keen insight, never fear; David Berlinski is back. With his excellent book is finally in paperback (after it sold out last year, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions was selling for more than three times its retail value on eBay), ENV interviewed Dr. Berlinski for a fascinating series of Q&A which we’re kicking off tomorrow, as well as an upcoming series of podcasts over at ID the Future. For more on Dr. Berlinski, including audio and video clips, articles, and continuing updates on his upcoming U.S. tour, head over to DavidBerlinski.org.

Bloggingheads Explains

In a new segment, Bloggingheads chief Robert Wright and Bloggingheads correspondent George Johnson go on for 75 minutes about the trauma of a pair of heretics (me and Paul Nelson, on separate segments) appearing on their site. I would urge everyone who doesn’t have pressing matters to attend to, such as the need to wash your hair, to tune in for the full time. It’s really fascinating in its way to see two grown men in such a hand-wringing lather. It’s also fascinating to see that neither of them in 75 minutes offers a reason for the correctness of their own views, or the wrongness of ours. The closest they come is when George Johnson invokes the hoary “methodological naturalism.”

In Oklahoma, Darwinist Choir Sings the Praises of Suppression and Censorship

It’s funny how a little thing like a documentary film can send the Darwinist choir into tizzy tantrums. If Darwin’s theory is the be all end all of science, why are they so worried by a small, independent film? Because, it is the power of the ideas in the film that have them scared. The makers of Unlocking the Mystery of Life and The Privileged Planet have produced the third in their trilogy of films about intelligent design, Darwin’s Dilemma The Mystery of the Cambrian Explosion. It’s a fantastic film and the producers are screening it in various venues around the country before it’s release on DVD next week. One of which is the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural Read More ›