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David Berlinski on Architectural Nihilism, Human Nature and the Holocaust, and Emotivism

Photo: David Berlinski via the Ben Shapiro Show.

We live in intellectually mediocre times, when commitment to true debate as a means of ascertaining truth — and the understanding that reasonable people can have different opinions — has been replaced by a desire among the culturally powerful to stifle heterodox thought and punish unapproved opinions.

On the Humanize podcast, from Discovery Institute’s Center for Human Exceptionalism, Wesley Smith’s guest refuses to yield to such intellectual straightjacketing. A true polymath and a Senior Fellow with the Center for Science & Culture, Dr. David Berlinski advocates heterodox ideas and thought, ranging from questioning Darwinism, to espousing the once-self-evident truth that there is such a thing as human nature. He and Wesley discuss the philosophy of mathematics, the corruption of science, and the causes of the ongoing devolution of Western society. Berlinski is stupefied to learn of the new environmental movement known as “nature rights,” which he rightly brands as “idiotic.” It’s a fascinating conversation with Berlinski, who is rightly considered one of the great minds of our time. Download the podcast or listen to it here.

David Berlinski received his PhD in philosophy from Princeton University and was later a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University. He has authored works on systems analysis, differential topology, theoretical biology, analytic philosophy, and the philosophy of mathematics, as well as three novels. He has taught philosophy, mathematics and English at such universities as Stanford, Rutgers, the City University of New York, and the Universite de Paris.

He is author of numerous books, including A Tour of the CalculusThe Advent of the AlgorithmNewton’s GiftA Short History of MathematicsThe Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific PretensionsThe King of Infinite Space: Euclid and His Elements, and his most recent, Human Nature. He is the author of too many essays to count and the subject of innumerable interviews.