09Dec 2019 by Post

David Berlinski on Europe, Entropy, Agnosticism

agnosticism, biological origins, Darwinism, David Berlinski, demographic winter, entropy, Europe, Evolution, Faith & Science, Human Nature (book), ID The Future, Jews, Muslim, nation state, nationalism, patriotism, Peter Robinson, Physics, Earth & Space, Podcast, s atheism, science, Second Law of Thermodynamics, theism, Uncommon Knowledge
A new episode of ID the Future features the third and final part of a conversation between Uncommon Knowledge host Peter Robinson and Darwin skeptic David Berlinski, author of the newly released book Human Nature. They discuss the fate of Europe, then turn again to science, and the challenge the second law of thermodynamics poses for Darwinism and, by implication, to any theory of biological origins restricted to purely mindless processes. Berlinski suggests that this poses a considerable challenge, tempting Robinson to ask Berlinski whether he still consider himself an agnostic. Download the podcast or listen to it here. The post David Berlinski on Europe, Entropy, Agnosticism appeared first on Evolution News.
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07Dec 2019 by Post

Berlinski: Evolution Toward Virtue and Progress?

Blueprint (book), children's table, cooperation, Culture & Ethics, David Berlinski, death camps, Evolution, ID The Future, Nazi Party, Nazis, Nicholas Christakis, Peter Robinson, Podcast, Pope Benedict XVI, progress, Regensburg address, religious thinking, theology
A new episode of ID the Future features the second part of a conversation between Uncommon Knowledge host Peter Robinson and polymath David Berlinski, author of the newly released book Human Nature. Robinson asks Berlinski about a book by Nicholas Christakis, Blueprint, which argues that evolution has endowed us with a genetic makeup that drives human culture toward virtue and progress. Berlinski demurs, pointing to the horrors of the 20th century and noting that the virtues Christakis underscores, such as cooperativeness, can also be put to nefarious purposes. The Nazi Party, for instance, “was a marvelous engine of cooperation. All those Nazis cooperated with one another running death camps.” Download the podcast or listen to it here. Robinson also asks Berlinski about Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 Regensburg address and the West’s relegating religious thinking,…
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03Dec 2019 by Post

Berlinski, Robinson on the “Almost Unfathomable Complexity” of Living Systems, and More

conservatives, Darwinism, David Berlinski, deferred success, Evolution, evolutionary theory, female, Human Nature (book), ID The Future, male, natural selection, Peter Robinson, Podcast, Razib Khan, The Deniable Darwin, Uncommon Knowledge
A new episode of ID the Future features the first part of an interview between Uncommon Knowledge host Peter Robinson and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow David Berlinski, author of The Deniable Darwin and the newly released Human Nature. Berlinski begins by noting that living systems possess “a degree of complexity that is almost unfathomable” and explains how this poses an acute problem for Darwinism. Download the episode or listen to it here. The two discuss discontinuities in the fossil record as well as Berlinski’s insistence that “any theory of natural selection must plainly meet what I have called a rule against deferred success.” Berlinski also rebuts Razib Khan’s claim that in rejecting modern evolutionary theory, conservatives sacrifice “the most powerful rejoinder” to the claim “that male and female are merely…
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24Nov 2019 by Post

Fast Track: Speeding Ben Shapiro and David Berlinski to You NOW

Ben Shapiro, Ben Shapiro Show, David Berlinski, Discovery Institute, drug trials, essentialism, Evolution, evolutionary science, Fast Track, Germans, human beings, Human Nature (book), interview, Jews, Nazis, philosophy, prescription medicines, science, social consequences, Sunday Special, USFDA
Wow, this is an amazing, hour-long conversation between Ben Shapiro and our Discovery Institute colleague David Berlinski. It’s today’s Sunday Special on the Ben Shapiro Show and you can watch it here on YouTube: Berlinski is wise and hilarious, and Shapiro a very fitting interlocutor. David’s new book, which forms the spine of the interview, is Human Nature, out now. I’ll have more to say on their interaction later. But in the spirit of the Fast Track program of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, hastening needed prescription medicine ahead of otherwise routine burdensome drug trial requirements, here are David and Ben right NOW, covering the philosophical and political attack on essentialism, why evolution is fundamentally at odds with a fixed nature to human beings (or dogs, or anything else…
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23Nov 2019 by Post

“Relentless and Devastating”: Mathematician Stephen McKeown on Berlinski’s Human Nature

Dallas, David Berlinski, Evolution, history, Human Nature (book), mathematics, quiddities, science, scientific knowledge, Stephen McKeown, University of Texas, wit, writers
More terrific endorsements for Human Nature! Here is mathematician Stephen McKeown on the latest from David Berlinski: Another tour de force by David Berlinski. Few writers indeed, about science or society, can boast such a thoroughgoing command of the significant ideas of the past century, the confident mastery of every centrally significant scientific theory. Yet if Berlinski derives obvious joy from the great theories that unify the world, he is never more memorable than when he vividly displays its irreducible particulars, holding the quiddities of place and person more clearly before our imagination than we might even see them ourselves. If Berlinski glories in science’s achievements, he is no less dismissive of those attempts to see pattern and abstraction born not of vision but of ignorance; and he repeatedly marshals…
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21Nov 2019 by Post

David Berlinski Joins Ben Shapiro on Sunday Special; Exhaustive Discussion of…Neutrino Mass?

Ben Shapiro, Culture & Ethics, David Berlinski, Evolution, human nature, Human Nature (book), Mass, neutrinos, Stephen Meyer, subscribers, The Ben Shapiro Show
David Berlinski’s latest, Human Nature, caught the attention of Ben Shapiro, who will discuss it and other matters with Dr. Berlinski for an hour on the Ben Shapiro Show’s Sunday Special, this Sunday, November 24. Here is a preview. Yes, as a colleague points out, it’s classic Berlinski: Don’t worry, what David says here about the neutrino and its mass — he’s only kidding! David B. and Ben Shapiro are a matchup that you’ll want to see, both brilliant personalities, but in such interestingly different ways. Stephen Meyer was on the Sunday Special this past March and he and Ben had a fantastic, fascinating conversation. In case you missed, it’s here. From past experience, the Sunday Special goes out to subscribers first, and is available on YouTube by the end…
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19Nov 2019 by Post

Drive Darwinists Nuts with This One Solution to Fake News

Ann Gauger, Central America, Charles Darwin, Darwinists, David Berlinski, David Gelernter, Debating Darwin's Doubt, Discovery Institute, Evolution, Evolution News, fake news, free speech, Google, Guillermo Gonzalez, Günter Bechly, Intelligent Design, Jonathan Wells, media, Michael Behe, Spanish, Stephen Meyer, Yale University
If you listen to the media, you’d think that science has refuted God, the debate over Darwin is closed, the solution to the origin of life is right around the corner, and humans are no more significant than cockroaches. If you are as sick of this kind of fake news as I am, I have good news. There is a solution, and you can be a part of it. The solution is this site — Evolution News & Science Today. How It All Started Discovery Institute started this news outlet back in 2004 to counter all the fake news in the debate over intelligent design. Since then, the audience for Evolution News has grown from a few thousand to more than a million users a year. In fact, according to Google, Evolution News is on track to reach…
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15Nov 2019 by Post

Phillip Johnson: A Fond Farewell

ACLU, Arkansas, Barry Lynn, Darwinism, David Berlinski, Eugenie Scott, Evolution, Faith & Science, Festschrift, Firing Line, Florida State University, Intelligent Design, Kenneth Miller, Michael Behe, Michael Kinsley, Michael Ruse, Phillip E. Johnson, philosophy of biology, Richard Dawkins, The Problem of War, William F. Buckley Jr.
Editor’s note: Phillip E. Johnson, Berkeley law professor and author of Darwin on Trial and other books, died on November 2. Evolution News is sharing remembrances from staff, friends, and Fellows of Discovery Institute. Philosopher of biology Michael Ruse, cherished by ID proponents as a longtime friendly antagonist, is the author of The Problem of War: Darwinism, Christianity, and their Battle to Understand Human Conflict and other books. Professor Ruse directs the Program in History and Philosophy of Science at Florida State University. I have just learned of the death of Phillip Johnson. We were very much on different sides of the IDT [intelligent design theory] debate, but I think I can truly say that our intellectual (and faith) disagreements made no difference to our personal respect and (dare I say) affection. Phil was born…
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12Nov 2019 by Post

Original, Incisive, Brilliant: Victor Davis Hanson on Berlinski’s Human Nature

celebrities, Culture & Ethics, David Berlinski, endorsements, Evolution, groupthink, Hoover Institution, human nature, intellectuals, linguistics, mathematics, military history, philosophy, physics, Stanford University, Uncommon Knowledge, Victor Davis Hanson
I’ve already had my say on David Berlinski’s new book, Human Nature. Now come the celebrity endorsements! I mean the endorsements from celebrity intellectuals. For the courage and clarity of his own writing, Victor Davis Hanson is a hero to me. Here’s what he has to say about Berlinski: Polymath David Berlinski’s appraisal of a transcendent human nature is really a military history, a discourse on physics and mathematics, a review of philosophy and linguistics, and a brilliant indictment of scientific groupthink by an unapologetic intellectual dissident. Read it and learn something original and incisive on every page. Yes, true. Hanson is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author of The Second World Wars and other books. More to come. Photo: David Berlinski on Uncommon…
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09Nov 2019 by Post

The Devil’s Delusion with Dr. David Berlinski

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Podcast: Play in new window Frank interviews one of his favorite authors, the provocative and articulate Dr. David Berlinski. Dr. David Berlinski is an author, thinker, professor, and self-described secular Jew, who with wit and elegance dismantles the assumptions and assertions of Darwinists and other atheistic materialists in his interviews and his books. Berlinski has his Ph.D. from Princeton University, has taught at Stanford and Rutgers, and is a fellow at the Discovery Institute (along with frequent guest Dr. Stephen Meyer). He lives in Paris but did this interview from Los Angeles where he was for an interview with Ben Shapiro. Join Frank for a far-reaching discussion with Dr. Berlinski who is incapable of being boring. If you want to send us a question for the show, please email us…
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