David Berlinski

The divine comedy
Creationism

Running gags

* Biblical literalism
* Young/Old Earth
* Intelligent design
* Creation scientists

Jokes aside

* Dendrochronology
* Plate tectonics
* Biogeography
* Fossil

Blooper reel

* Scientific Creationism (book)
* Polonium halos
* Lunar bukkake hypothesis
* Evidence for God from Science

Evolutionism debunkers

* Paul Nelson
* Tim Ball
* Charlton Heston
* Steven Crowder

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David Berlinski is an American philosopher and intelligent design advocate. He is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.[1] He has also written on mathematics, including a rather well-received introduction to calculus, though his books “Newton's Gift” and “The Advent of the Algorithm”, his only two books to be reviewed on MathSciNet, were criticized for containing historical and mathematical inaccuracies. It is worth noting that his books on mathematics are popular books. Although often referred to as a “mathematician”, Berlinski has done no research in mathematics.[2] He has also written several books of fiction.

He claims to be a secular Jew and agnostic, and denies that he is an advocate of intelligent design but rather claims to be a skeptic on the matter of evolution. However, his articles and books are filled with religiously-based creationist arguments.[3] Although he officially refuses to speculate about the origins of life, critics argue that he is pretty obviously a shill for intelligent design.[4] Berlinski is a signatory to A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism.

## Contents

* 1 Intelligent Design
* 1.1 The enumerative “cows cannot evolve into whales” argument
* 2 Anti-evolution books by David Berlinski
* 3 Notes
* 4 References

## Intelligent Design[edit]

In his 1996 article “The Deniable Darwin”, Berlinski lays out several reasons for his skepticism of evolution,[5] These include

* the appearance “at once” of an astonishing number of novel biological structures in the Cambrian explosion, to which Wesley Elsberry commented that “I personally like my 'at onces' to refer to events significantly shorter than ten million years.”
* the lack of major transitional fossils and transitional sequences
* the lack of recent significant evolution in sharks
* the evolution of the eye, and (in his view)
* the failure of evolutionary biology to explain a range of phenomena ranging from the sexual cannibalism of redback spiders to why women are not born with a tail. As Arthur Shapiro points out, Berlinski “wants evolutionary biologists to explain from first principles why one species of widow spider commits sexual suicide while another does not,” knowing perfectly well that “the chain of causes is too long, with too many opportunities for historical contingency to operate, for anyone with less than the omniscience of the deity to do that.”

The article elicited a number of responses from real scientists,[6] and was described by Daniel Dennett as “another hilarious demonstration that you can publish bullshit at will – just so long as you say what an editorial board wants to hear in a style it favors.” Eugenie Scott described Berlinski's arguments thus:

“”The content of David Berlinski's article does not differ from more traditional creation-science material, though his tone is more genteel and his writing a lot more literate […] But true to the creation-science genre, his approach consists of constructing strawmen, then knocking them down with misinterpreted, faulty, or nonexistent data as well as carefully selected quotations from evolutionary scientists.

In his appearance in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed he told Ben Stein that “Darwinism is not a sufficient condition for a phenomenon like Nazism but I think it's certainly a necessary one,” apparently because race-based genocide had never happened before The Origin of Species, which was, by the way, banned in Nazi Germany.

Berlinski, along with fellow Discovery Institute associates Michael Behe and William Dembski, tutored Ann Coulter on “science and evolution” for her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism. According to the credit section: “I couldn't have written about evolution without the generous tutoring of Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and William Dembski, all of whom are fabulous at translating complex ideas, unlike liberal arts types, who constantly force me to the dictionary to relearn the meaning of quotidian.” Of course, Coulter was in absolutely no position to write about science after their tutelage either.[note 1]

One of Berlinski’s main argument strategies is to name-drop people, in particular mathematicians, who were allegedly skeptical of evolution.[7] He is rarely able to document any skepticism of evolution from the people he mentions, but claims to have heard about their skepticism from his friends, who may have met some of them.

PZ Myers has summed up Berlinski as a bad case of delusional narcissism.[8]

### The enumerative “cows cannot evolve into whales” argument[edit]

One of Berlinski’s most celebrated anti-evolution arguments is his calculation that at least 50,000 changes were required to change a cow into a whale (he stopped counting). Of course, since even if he was capable of listing out these differences at an implausibly fast average rate of one every ten seconds, it would still take more than 5 days of non-stop 24h-hour activity to accomplish this, few believe that he actually did what he claimed to have done.[9] Berlinski does not, of course, know anything about the evolution of whales, missing such rather central details as the fact that cows did not evolve into whales.[10]

## Anti-evolution books by David Berlinski[edit]

* The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky (2003), which compares astrological and evolutionary accounts of human behavior.
* The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions (2008), which is a defense of religion asserting that atheists misrepresent science, that an objective morality requires a religious foundation, that mathematical theories attempting to bring together quantum mechanics and relativity amount to pseudoscience, and that evolutionary theory is doubtful. It's filled with ad hominems and strawman arguments, without even a single citation.
* Deniable Darwin & Other Essays (2009)

## Notes[edit]

1. ↑ She called the theory of evolution "the flatulent raccoon theory", and failed to exhibit even the most cursory understanding of it. Some of her points are discussed in this post, Pharyngula, post from June 18, 2006.

## References[edit]

1. ↑ David Berlinski, Senior Fellow - CSC
2. ↑ Mark Perakh, “The assault of ID advocates on Professor Gross's essay is poorly substantiated,” part of Scientists Respond to the Orchestrated Assault of IDists on Professor Gross, December 4, 2003.
3. ↑ Denying Darwin
4. ↑ Ronald Numbers (1998). Darwinism Comes to America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 20
5. ↑ Berlinski (1996), the article in pdf version.
6. ↑ Letters from Readers in response to “Denying Darwin”].
7. ↑ Good math, Bad math, Post from November 9, 2009
8. ↑ Pharyngula, Blogpost from July 3, 2007
9. ↑ The Bad Idea Blog, post from August 29, 2007
10. ↑ Sandwalk, Post from August, 2007.

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Articles about creationism

Types of creationism: |  Gap creationism • Day-age creationism • Old Earth creationism • Progressive creation • Hare Krishna creationism • Young Earth creationism • Intelligent design •
Evidence against a recent creation: |  Creationism and social history • Geomagnetism • Petrified forest • Radiometric dating • Carbon dating • Dendrochronology • Y-chromosomal Adam • Mitochondrial Eve • Starlight problem • Plate tectonics • Rotation of the Earth • Atmosphere of the Moon • Biogeography • K-Pg extinction event • Geologic timeline • Fossil • Transitional fossil • Fossil record • Lake Agassiz • List of transitional forms • Recent African Origin hypothesis • Punctuated equilibrium • Bird evolution • Geology • Grand Canyon • Evolution • Fossil fuel • Paleontology • History of the Earth • Evidence against a recent creation • Yellowstone • Diamond • Iron • Age of the Earth •
| Creationist claims: |  Geomagnetism • Do you want to be descended from a monkey? • Evolution and religion • Evolution and morality • C-decay • Peanut butter argument • Intelligent design and academic freedom • Science was wrong before • Science doesn't know everything • Catastrophic plate tectonics • Hydroplate theory • Lunar bukkake hypothesis • Creationist mathematics • Biblical literalism • Bumblebee argument • Orchidaceae • Irreducible complexity • Leap second • Wedge Strategy • Noah's Ark • 101 evidences for a young age of the Earth and the universe • Noah's Ark sightings • Evolution conspiracy • Recession of the Moon • Rotation of the Earth • Atmosphere of the Moon • Lunar dust • Lunar radioactivity • White hole cosmology • Firmament • Evolutionism • Haji Yearam • Galactocentricity • Hanzi of Genesis • Historical and operational science • Proof of the inconsistency of arithmetic • List of creationist claims • Global flood • De-evolution • Microevolution and macroevolution • In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood • Borel's Law • Baraminology • Dinosaur denialism •
| Global flood: |  Flood geology • Noah's Ark • Noah • Lunar bukkake hypothesis • Fossil sorting by the global flood • Hydroplate theory • Global flood • Grand Canyon • Noah (film) • Epic of Gilgamesh • Didit fallacy • God's Love • Noah's Ark sightings • Haji Yearam • Lake Agassiz • Parasites during the global flood • Life and the global flood • Baraminology • Global flood chronology • Yellowstone • Petrified forest •
Intelligent design creationism: |  Falsifiability of creationism • Irreducible complexity • Cdesign proponentsists • Intelligent design and academic freedom • Argument from design • The Wonders of Creation Reveal God's Glory • Biological Information: New Perspectives • Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design • John A. Davison • Evolution Under the Microscope: A Scientific Critique of the Theory of Evolution • Rethinking Darwin: A Vedic Study of Darwinism and Intelligent Design • Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False • Providence Lost: A Critique of Darwinism • The Darwin Myth: The Life and Lies of Charles Darwin • The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories • The Origin of Human Nature: A Zen Buddhist Looks at Evolution • Thomas Nagel • Darwinism Under The Microscope: How Recent Scientific Evidence Points To Divine Design • The End of Darwinism • Ask Darwinists • Polonium halos • Explanatory Filter • Flowers of asexually-reproducing plants • Eye • Argument from fine tuning • Argument from beauty • Argument from first cause • Flagellum • Moody Institute of Science • Intelligent design • Laryngeal nerve • Suboptimal design • Adam and Evolution: A Scientific Critique of Neo-Darwinism • Expelled: Leader's Guide • Banana argument • Vault-Co •
| "Intelligent" alternatives: |  Intelligent falling • Scientific storkism • Pastafarianism • Scientific Geoterrapinism • Wedgie strategy •
| Teach the controversy: |  Santorum Amendment • Missouri House Bill 1227 • Indiana Senate Bill 89 • Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District • Academic Freedom Act • Louisiana Academic Freedom Act • Tennessee monkey bill • Edwards v. Aguillard • Thomas More Law Center • School vouchers • Eugenie Scott • Teach the controversy • Truth in Science • McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education •
Creationists: |  Ben Stein • Barry Setterfield • Jonathan Sarfati • Ray Comfort • B.H. Shadduck • Kirk Cameron • Harun Yahya • Wendy Wright • Carl Wieland • John Ankerberg • Jack Cuozzo • William Jennings Bryan • Russ Miller • Lee Strobel • Brother Stair • Paul Nelson • James Nienhuis • Art Robinson • Alan O'Reilly • PPSIMMONS • Hank Hanegraaff • Charlie Wagner • Rush Limbaugh • Roy Spencer • Grover Norquist • Ann Coulter • Christopher Booker • Andrea Minichiello Williams • Tom Bethell • Chuck Baldwin • Rick Perry • Bradley Monton • Mission: America • Christopher Langan • Aimee Semple McPherson • Richard Kent • Ljiljana Čolić • Abuz Zubair • Scott Huse • Barry Arrington • Grant Jeffrey • Janet Porter • Alan Clifford • Kurt Wise • Kenneth McKilliam • Bradlee Dean • Hugh Ross • Geoffrey Simmons • James Le Fanu • Norman Nevin • Shaun Johnston • Issac Bourne • John C. Sanford • Fazale Rana • Benjamin Wiker • Hugh Dower • Lee Spetner • Mark Ludwig • Alan Hayward • Werner Gitt • William Fix • Maciej Giertych • Robert E. D. Clark • John C. Landon • Barbara Cargill • Philip Snow • Ken Jopp • Frank Tipler • Richard William Nelson • Todd Friel • Bob Sorensen • Eugene Windchy • Berit Kjos • Glenn Beck • Robert McLuhan • George C. Deutsch • Ross McKitrick • Daniel Neiman • Ron Wyatt • Desmond Paul Allen • Jay Wile • Jack Chick • Ian Juby • Anthony Peake • Tim Ball • John Mackay • Sheik Feiz Muhammad • J. P. Holding • Michael Cremo • Chuck Norris • Steve Milloy • Rick Santorum • Christine O'Donnell • Larry Craig • Mike Bara • John Hawkins • Alan Keyes • Chris Carter • Ted Cruz • Bobby Jindal • James Ussher • Larry Pratt • Bob Dutko • Steve Fuller • Denyse O'Leary • Mike Huckabee • American Thinker • Babu G. Ranganathan • Ben Hobrink • Carl Baugh • Humans Are Free • Mary Lou Bruner • Educate-yourself.org • Andrew Schlafly • Ian Paisley • VenomFangX • Todd Akin • Paul Broun • James Manning • Mike Pence • Shockofgod • Sye Ten Bruggencate • Brad Stine • Charlton Heston • Pat Toomey • Josh Axe • Ben Carson • William Dembski • Presents Of God Ministry • Jim Allister • Whale.to • Jonathan Otto • Becky Fischer • Roy Moore • David Wilcock • Jerry Falwell Sr. • Mark Dice • Ron Paul • Sam Brownback • Pat Buchanan • Don McLeroy • Marco Rubio • Michele Bachmann • Pat Robertson • John Hagee • Mary Fallin • The Vigilant Christian • Betsy DeVos • WND • Joseph Farah • Media Research Center • Theodore Beale • Encyclopedia of American Loons • Zakir Naik • Got Questions • R. L. Wysong • ProphecyFilm.com • Kent Hovind • Steven Anderson • Dennis Prager • Bernard d'Abrera • Mohammad Tawhidi • Dylan Wheeler • CJ Pearson • Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry • Eric Hovind • Cornelius Van Til • Frank Turek • Sarah Palin • Brandon Tatum • William Lane Craig • Alex Jones (slovensky) • Charlie Kirk • Owen Benjamin • Steven Crowder • Rick Warren • Jerry Falwell Jr. • Ted Holden • Alex Jones • E. Calvin Beisner • Kate Tieje • Michael Denton • New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Movement • Mark Cahill • Jim Inhofe • Gary Birdsong • R.J. Rushdoony • Pat Boone • The Washington Times • Canada Free Press • NewsBusters • Jimmy Swaggart • Miroljub Petrović • Marjorie Taylor Greene • Chuck Colson • Stephen E. Jones • Lew Rockwell • Tom Tancredo • John Kasich • Gary North • E. W. Jackson • Kevin Stitt • Steve Turley • Truth Never Sleeps • Zachary K. Hubbard • Conservapedia • Mike Johnson • National Rifle Association • Butch Hartman • Joshua Feuerstein • Christopher Rufo • Peter Sweden •
| Fundie schools: |  Brigham Young University • Bryan College • Cedarville University • Patrick Henry College • Regent University • Patriot Bible University • Fundie school • College Credit for Creationism • The Master's University • Boston Baptist College • San Diego Christian College • Columbia Pacific University • TRACS • Cornerstone University • Pensacola Christian College • Bob Jones University • Hyles-Anderson College • University of South Los Angeles • Cambridge Theological Seminary • Haven University • Liberty University • Louisiana Baptist University and Seminary • New Eden School of Natural Health • Georgia Central University • Andersonville Theological Seminary • Ambassador Baptist College • Hillsdale College •
| Discovery Institute: |  Teach the controversy • Of Pandas and People • Wedge Strategy • Text of The Wedge Strategy • Explore Evolution • Jonathan Witt • Biologic Institute • Jonathan Wells • Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed • Michael Egnor • Douglas Axe • Academic Freedom Day • Casey Luskin • What is intelligent design? • Behe: The Edge of Evolution, Interview • Science and Human Origins • Wedgie strategy • Project Steve • BIO-Complexity • Texas Board of Education • Richard Weikart • Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District • Human exceptionalism • Darwin's Predictions • Stephen Meyer • Howard Ahmanson • Melvin Mulder • Lists of creationist scientists • Discovery Institute • Complex Specified Information • Michael Behe • Phillip Johnson • Joel Brind • Non-materialist neuroscience • Academic Freedom Act •
| Answers in Genesis: |  Answers in Genesis Dawkins interview controversy • Bodie Hodge • Andrew Snelling • Affirmations and Denials Essential to a Consistent Christian (Biblical) Worldview • Answers in Genesis-Creation Ministries International's Statement of Faith • Hanzi of Genesis • Atheists Outline Their Global Religious Agenda • 12 Arguments Evolutionists Should Avoid • Creation Ministries International • Lists of creationist scientists • Answers Research Journal • Ark Encounter • Jason Lisle • Answers in Genesis • Ken Ham • Creation Museum • Buddy Davis • Bill Nye debates Ken Ham • Ham Hightail •
|  | Answers Research Journal: |  Answers Research Journal volume 2 • Answers Research Journal volume 3 • Answers Research Journal volume 5 • Answers Research Journal volume 1 • Answers Research Journal volume 6 • Answers Research Journal volume 4 • Answers Research Journal • Answers Research Journal volume 7 • Answers Research Journal volume 8 • Answers Research Journal volume 9 • Answers Research Journal volume 10 • Answers Research Journal volume 11 • Answers Research Journal volume 12 • Answers Research Journal volume 13 • Answers Research Journal volume 14 •
| Institute for Creation Research: |  Nathaniel Jeanson • Jeffrey Tomkins • Lawrence Ford • Henry Morris • Brian Thomas • Duane Gish • RATE • Your Origins Matter • John Morris • Jerry Bergman • San Diego Christian College • Timothy LaHaye • Russell Humphreys • Lists of creationist scientists • TRACS • Andrew Snelling • David A. DeWitt • Alpha Omega Institute • Jason Lisle • Institute for Creation Research • Danny Faulkner •