David Berlinski
David Berlinski | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | Princeton University |
| Known for | Critic of Darwinian evolution and scientific atheism; The Devil's Delusion |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics, philosophy of science |
David Berlinski is an American author, mathematician and philosopher known for his popular writing on mathematics and for his criticism of Darwinian evolutionary theory and of what he calls the "scientific pretensions" of atheism. He is listed in The Worldwide List of Dissident Scientists.
Background
Berlinski holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University and has taught mathematics and philosophy at universities in the United States and France. He is a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute and is the author of popular books on mathematics and science, including A Tour of the Calculus, The Advent of the Algorithm and Newton's Gift.
Ideas
In The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions (2008), Berlinski responds to the "new atheist" writings of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens, arguing that science does not support the sweeping metaphysical claims sometimes made in its name. Describing himself as a secular Jew, he defends the reasonableness of religious belief and expresses skepticism toward core elements of Darwinian evolution and toward cosmological accounts such as the Big Bang. His critiques of evolutionary theory are rejected by the mainstream scientific community.