There is no subject like evolution to bring out the blowhards, and Wayne Eyre is just the latest. Writing in the National Post, Eyre praises David Berlinski's latest screed, The Devil's Delusion.
Berlinski, as you probably know, is the poseur who somehow managed to get his anti-evolutionary blather published in venues such as Commentary. He was also recenty caught inventing bogus claims about John von Neumann's attitude towards evolution. A reliable source? I don't think so.
Nevertheless, Blowhard of the Month Eyre accepts Berlinski's claims about evolution at face value. If Berlinski says that the theory of evolution "makes little sense", Eyre believes it must be so. Somehow, Berlinski -- a man with no biological training -- knows more than actual biologists. Differential reproductive success coupled with a mechanism for genotypic/phenotypic change means evolution is inevitable. Any beginning biology student understands this. What about it is so difficult for Eyre?
If Berlinski says the theory of evolution "is supported by little evidence", it must be so. Never mind the painstaking case assembled by Darwin that convinced biologists a hundred years ago. Never mind the mounds and mounds of evidence assembled since then -- if Eyre has ever cracked open a biology textbook or Endler's Natural Selection in the Wild, I would be amazed. No: philosophy Ph. D. David Berlinski has said it, and so it must be true.
Eyre even resorts to the favorite ploy of the blowhard: if all the experts say I am wrong, that is proof I am right.
The fact that the National Post would publish this idea-free dreck is yet more proof that intellectual conservatism is dead.
Showing posts with label Berlinski. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Berlinski. Show all posts
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
David Berlinski, King Of Poseurs
David Berlinski is yet another of those academic nonentities that the Intelligent Design crowd has elevated to the status of expert, despite having a minuscule scientific publication record and not a single significant contribution to science or mathematics. Berlinski is fond of writing, mostly negatively, about the theory of evolution, despite understanding virtually nothing about the subject, and somehow manages to get his essays published in famous scientific venues, such as Commentary.
Berlinski is sometimes described as a mathematician, although his Ph. D. is apparently in philosophy, not mathematics. MathSciNet, the online version of Mathematical Reviews, a journal that attempts to review nearly every mathematical publication, lists exactly 8 items authored or edited by Berlinski. Two are books for a popular audience: (Newton's Gift and The Advent of the Algorithm). Of the remaining 6 items, 3 are contributions published in Synthese, a philosophical journal, for which Berlinski served as editor and wrote brief introductions and the other 3 are largely philosophical papers, published in Synthese, the Biomathematics series, and Logique et Analyse. Two of the last three didn't even merit a genuine review in Mathematical Reviews.
Berlinski also published a 1998 contribution entitled "Gödel's Question" in Mere Creation, an intelligent design book edited by William Dembski and published by that famous scientific publisher, InterVarsity Press. This piece of mathematical junk was already taken apart by Jason Rosenhouse, so I won't comment on it further other to say that it is so content-free, it could not be published in any reputable mathematical journal.
When Berlinski boasts that he "got fired from almost every job [he] ever had", one can only listen open-mouthed at the chutzpah to transform a mark of shame into a badge of iconoclasm. WIth such a miserable publication record, it's amazing he was ever hired to begin with.
Berlinski's fame, such as it is, derives from his popular books, which include A Tour of the Calculus in addition to the ones I listed above. Some reviewers, mostly those with no mathematical training, like his books for their literary value. Personally, I find them insufferable. To explain why, I can do no better than to list some excerpts from a review of A Tour of the Calculus by Jet Wimp, at that time a professor at Drexel University, and published in The Mathematical Intelligencer 19 (3) (1997), 70-72:
"Reading Berlinski's book A Tour of the Calculus, I was first angered, then revolted, then finally wearied: the three stages of grief of the hapless reviewer. Berlinski wants to maek the calculus available to everyone--anyone who wants, simply, "a little more light shed on a dark subject". This delirious tract is the result....
"Berlinski's greatest friend, but ultimately his worst enemy, is metaphor. The gongorisms that saturate this book actually confound what the author claims is its central mission: to teach the novice calculus. The Berlinski rhetoric ultimately becomes suffocating. The metaphors explode from all directions...
"This expositional overload implies a cynical disrespect for the subject...
"I was particularly annoyed by Berlinski's biographical snippets... Had Berlinski done his homework, he could have told us some interesting things about mathematicians that were really true. He might have told us, for example, that Newton's explosive temper and dark moods were most likely caused by mercury poisoning, and chemical analysis of the floorboards of his still extant alchemical laboratory have revealed heavy concentrations of that metal. But then, perhaps such an observation lacks poetry.
"I was dismayed at the author's rudimentary grasp of mathematical history. It is painful to find so little learning in a book that purports to explain an intellectual discipline...
"Of all the passages in the book, I found the following the most mortifying... I flushed with embarrassment (as would anyone who loves mathematics) when I read this rebarbative grunge quoted (disapprovingly) in a review in The New Scientist...
"Regrettably, Berlinski's readers will emerge from his verbal thickets hearing nothing."
This reviewer sees through Berlinski's obfuscations for what they are: a pretentious exercise with no relation to genuine exposition.
Now that Berlinski has appeared in "Expelled", expect to see even more of this pompous poseur in the media.
Berlinski is sometimes described as a mathematician, although his Ph. D. is apparently in philosophy, not mathematics. MathSciNet, the online version of Mathematical Reviews, a journal that attempts to review nearly every mathematical publication, lists exactly 8 items authored or edited by Berlinski. Two are books for a popular audience: (Newton's Gift and The Advent of the Algorithm). Of the remaining 6 items, 3 are contributions published in Synthese, a philosophical journal, for which Berlinski served as editor and wrote brief introductions and the other 3 are largely philosophical papers, published in Synthese, the Biomathematics series, and Logique et Analyse. Two of the last three didn't even merit a genuine review in Mathematical Reviews.
Berlinski also published a 1998 contribution entitled "Gödel's Question" in Mere Creation, an intelligent design book edited by William Dembski and published by that famous scientific publisher, InterVarsity Press. This piece of mathematical junk was already taken apart by Jason Rosenhouse, so I won't comment on it further other to say that it is so content-free, it could not be published in any reputable mathematical journal.
When Berlinski boasts that he "got fired from almost every job [he] ever had", one can only listen open-mouthed at the chutzpah to transform a mark of shame into a badge of iconoclasm. WIth such a miserable publication record, it's amazing he was ever hired to begin with.
Berlinski's fame, such as it is, derives from his popular books, which include A Tour of the Calculus in addition to the ones I listed above. Some reviewers, mostly those with no mathematical training, like his books for their literary value. Personally, I find them insufferable. To explain why, I can do no better than to list some excerpts from a review of A Tour of the Calculus by Jet Wimp, at that time a professor at Drexel University, and published in The Mathematical Intelligencer 19 (3) (1997), 70-72:
"Reading Berlinski's book A Tour of the Calculus, I was first angered, then revolted, then finally wearied: the three stages of grief of the hapless reviewer. Berlinski wants to maek the calculus available to everyone--anyone who wants, simply, "a little more light shed on a dark subject". This delirious tract is the result....
"Berlinski's greatest friend, but ultimately his worst enemy, is metaphor. The gongorisms that saturate this book actually confound what the author claims is its central mission: to teach the novice calculus. The Berlinski rhetoric ultimately becomes suffocating. The metaphors explode from all directions...
"This expositional overload implies a cynical disrespect for the subject...
"I was particularly annoyed by Berlinski's biographical snippets... Had Berlinski done his homework, he could have told us some interesting things about mathematicians that were really true. He might have told us, for example, that Newton's explosive temper and dark moods were most likely caused by mercury poisoning, and chemical analysis of the floorboards of his still extant alchemical laboratory have revealed heavy concentrations of that metal. But then, perhaps such an observation lacks poetry.
"I was dismayed at the author's rudimentary grasp of mathematical history. It is painful to find so little learning in a book that purports to explain an intellectual discipline...
"Of all the passages in the book, I found the following the most mortifying... I flushed with embarrassment (as would anyone who loves mathematics) when I read this rebarbative grunge quoted (disapprovingly) in a review in The New Scientist...
"Regrettably, Berlinski's readers will emerge from his verbal thickets hearing nothing."
This reviewer sees through Berlinski's obfuscations for what they are: a pretentious exercise with no relation to genuine exposition.
Now that Berlinski has appeared in "Expelled", expect to see even more of this pompous poseur in the media.
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