Berlinski Takes on St. Christopher, Now Viewable Online at C-SPAN

Good news! The Berlinski/Hitchens debate of a couple weeks ago, “Does Atheism Poison Everything?,” is now viewable online in full at C-SPAN. Berlinski is inimitably rapier-like yet courteous as always, though I don’t envy him having to fend off the sympathy vote for the ailing and recently sainted Christopher Hitchens (who looks eerily like Sebastian Shaw as Anakin Skywalker in Return of the Jedi). At Why Evolution Is True, Jerry Coyne notes the C-SPAN production, first smugly saying — apparently before he watched it — how enjoyable it is to see Hitchens “take apart” the “haughty” Berlinski. Then he offers an update to the same post, apparently now having watched the event, where he pronounces it a “reasonably good debate” Read More ›

New TV Documentary Links Darwinian Theory with Poisonous “Social Darwinism”

In the debates sparked recently by the New Atheist writers, bashers and defenders of faith have been united at least on one point: Ideas have consequences. The consequences of a particularly controversial idea — Darwinian evolution, a pillar of atheism — will be the subject of a provocative new documentary on cable TV. What Hath Darwin Wrought? shows the relationship of the founding father of evolutionary theory to eugenic, racist, and even Nazi ideologies. Discovery Institute scholars John West, Richard Weikart, and David Berlinski provide the historical background in interviews with television personality Todd Friel.

Berlinski’s Dismantlement of Darwinism “A Virtuoso Recital”

David Berlinski’s collection of essays, The Deniable Darwin, garnered a favorable review over at Hot Air, where CK Macleod had this to say: The Deniable Darwin collects essays written from 1996 to 2009 mostly on the same general theme: That the insufferable pretensions and aggressive self-certainty of science ideologues prevent us from justly appreciating how much we actually have learned about the natural world, and how wonderfully little that is. He applies his dauntingly well-informed, remorselessly cogent skepticism to several fields of study — theoretical physics, mathematics, linguistics, molecular biology — but it’s his dismantlement of Darwinism that he takes to center stage for a virtuoso recital. Macleod understands that critics of Berlinski are wrong to accuse him “of the Read More ›

David Berlinski to Speak at Florida International University

Florida has all the fun. Fresh on the heels of the Signature in the Cell event in Tampa, we have learned from our friends at the C. S. Lewis Society that Discovery Senior Fellow David Berlinski will be speaking at a couple events this week, including “The Deniable Darwin: Has Science Buried Religion?” this Thursday, Feb 4th at 3:30 pm. The presentation will take place at Florida International University’s Graham Center Room 140. Following that, there will be Darwin vs. Design “Pizza Bash” featuring Dr. Berlinski and Dr. Tom Woodward this Saturday: Pizza Kick-off: On Saturday, Feb 6th at 6:00 pm, at the First Alliance Church of Ft. Lauderdale (900 SW 31st Ave.) Dr. Tom Woodward and the C. S. Read More ›

Darwin and the Mathematicians

ENV: In the past, you’ve remarked about mathematicians and their opinions of Darwin’s theory of evolution. They were skeptical, you said; very skeptical. John Von Neumann was an example. How do you know that about him and about other mathematicians? DB: How do I know? Here’s how: I have been close to a number of mathematicians, and friends with others: Daniel Gallin (who died before he could begin his career), M.P. Schutzenberger (my great friend), René Thom (a friend as well), Gian-Carlo Rota (another friend), Lipman Bers (who taught me complex analysis and with whom I briefly shared a hospital room, he leaving as I was coming), Paul Halmos (a colleagues in California), and Irving Segal (a friend by correspondence, Read More ›