Has anyone provided a proof of God’s inexistence?
Not even close.Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here?
Not even close.Have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life?
Not even close.Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought?
Close enough.
Has rationalism in moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral?
Not close enough.Has secularism in the terrible twentieth century been a force for good?
Not even close to being close.Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy of thought and opinion within the sciences?
Close enough.Does anything in the sciences or in their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational?
Not even ballpark.Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt?
Dead on.
Dr. Berlinski’s agnosticism and willingness to say, “I don’t know”, has a great appeal to someone like me. Anyone working in the hard sciences or engineering is accustomed to being made aware of his own fallibility on an hourly basis, and out of necessity one learns to become skeptical of many things. To hear someone as brilliant as Berlinski say, “I don’t know”, makes him more credible in my eyes. Dr. Berlinski echoes the skepticism and agnosticism that is at the heart of science, a skepticism which says, “I don’t know, but I want to learn more”.
What do we know for sure? Perhaps not much. I know for sure there is no hope or salvation in Charles Darwin. I know for sure Darwin found math repugnant and admitted he couldn’t even perform the early steps of high school algebra after considerable effort.
In contrast, Berlinski loves mathematics and physics, and in his book, Devil’s Delusion, he expresses much of his love of math and physics as he critiques the scientific pretensions of the atheists.
Berlinski defends his ideas by exploring the works of Maxwell, Einstein, Godel, Turing, Chomsky and other great minds. Dawkins in contrast appeals to Darwin. I would take Maxwell, Turing, and Godel over Darwin any day.
Here are some excerpts from Berlinski’s book:
the great German mathematician David Hilbert affirmed in an address given in 1930, “We must know, we will know.”
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Shortly after Hilbert delivered his address, Kurt Godel demonstrated that mathematics was inherently incomplete. If science in the twentieth century has demonstrated anything, it is that there are limits to what we can know.
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Darwin’s theory of evolution…may be grasped by anyone in an afternoon, and often is. A week suffices to make a man a specialist.
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historian Richard Weikart, who in his admirable treatise, From Darwin to Hitler makes clear what anyone capable of reading the German sources already knew: A sinister current of influence ran form Darwin’s theory of evolution to Hitler’s policy of extermination.
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Darwinian biologists are very often persuaded that there is a conspiracy to make them look foolish. In this they are correct.
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Computer simulations of Darwinian evolution fail when they are honest and succeed only when they are not….What these computer experiment do reveal is a principle far more penetrating than any that Darwin ever offered: There is a sucker born every minute.
After reading the book, one is forced to conclude, “scientific” atheism is The Devil’s Delusion.