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A Scientist Bellyaches in the New York Times–and David Berlinski Replies
Last Wednesday, physicist Adam Frank published a column in the New York Times entitled “Welcome to the Age of Denial.” Frank’s complaint? That since the middle of the last century, science has lost ground in American life. “In that era..,” Frank writes, “politicians were expected to support science financially but otherwise leave it alone….”
Over the weekend, I found myself discussing Frank’s article with the philosopher and mathematician David Berlinski, the author of many works, including Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics. (Here at Ricochet, David will also be known as Claire’s father.) “I read…[Frank’s column],” David wrote, “with a sense of fascinated contempt.”
David’s thoughts on the piece proved so fascinating–and so wonderfully provocative–that I asked his permission to post them. Note that I asked David how a layman should think about science:
How should a layman think about science? The question carries with it a suggestion that whatever thinking we laymen are doing, we are not doing it well. We need to do better if we are to appreciate science and various scientists more. Why we should appreciate them at all is a point never mentioned and a question never raised.
The New York Times op-ed to which you linked is almost a paradigm case in which complaints of this sort are aired, and aired always with a sense of self-pitying grievance. I read it with a sense of fascinated contempt. Can you imagine a distinguished attorney, one specializing in contracts & torts, say, making this sort of argument in print? Yet the law is, I dare say, far more important to human happiness and well-being than astrophysics, Frank’s speciality.
The age of denial indeed! What is so striking about all this is the absolute refusal of the scientific community ever — not even once — to examine its own behavior and especially the tendency of the scientific community both to an extravagant boastfulness and to a barely concealed eagerness to help itself to an ever larger portion of the national wealth. These people have become the robber barons of the 21st century and when they are not asking for more money they are busy annoying the rest of us with any number of absurd and inflated and very commonly deceitful claims about what they are doing.
Climate denial? Who knows? Not me, for sure. But what I do know is that a great many people have read and studied the East Anglia e-mails, and that as a result they do know, and know with certainty, that climate science is and has been in the hands of intellectual mediocrities and pious charlatans. Evolution denial? More of the same. Even as we are flogged by various loathsome propaganda organs toward an ever more perfect admiration for Darwinian theory, now said to explain everything from the painting of the Mona Lisa to the formation of the universe, anyone reading the research literature, which is neither inaccessible nor more intellectually challenging than Parcheesi, knows perfectly well that virtually nothing remains of that gaseous old theory and that almost everything in biology is unclear and so open to question, Darwin’s theory answering about as many questions as old-fashioned astrology, which is to say, no questions whatsoever.
The scientific establishment, “eager to help itself to an ever-larger portion of the national wealth,” and whining all the way to the bank. No one combines sheer intellectual command with a willingness to talk back like David Berlinski.
Published in General
You have it backwards – The Bible does a poor job of explaining the universe as we observe it – incredibly so, as it asserts that the earth existed before light in Genesis, and any number of other absurdities.
It isn’t the fault of science that it fails to confirm the narrative laid out in the Bible and as a result of that casts doubt on some of the more fantastical elements contained therein.
I have already conceded metaphysics at Universe T=0, although I would point out that any number of solutions to that question are acceptable but almost non of them resemble the Christian God. ·18 hours ago
Majestyk, I can’t “have it backwards” as you claim because I never argued in favor of the biblical creation account. I merely point out the fact that you concede above: Science, including evolutionary theory, does not explain the universe–does not rule out God–and it irks me that some scientists claim otherwise, on scientific rather than personal grounds.
Do you not think that this seeming contradiction would have been clear to readers of these very early texts at the time? Why, then, wouldn’t the author simply change them? {SNIP} It is very easy to make something sound ridiculous when you want to. But honest Biblical scholarship has always addressed those issues head-on.
No, I don’t think that because I think the people who wrote the various books which comprise the Bible intended for it to be interpreted exactly as they wrote it. Literally. They really believed this stuff to be true – otherwise, why write it at all?
A significant portion of American Christians believe that the Bible is to be taken literally – no interpretation is allowed. Of course, when you point out that the Bible says a number of monstrous things they begin to quickly wave their arms and shout “Squirrel!”
If it takes so little effort to make something look ridiculous is it possible that it IS ridiculous?
Why is my request for literal interpretation a bad one? Which parts of the Bible ought we not take literally? Could you highlight the portions which are allegorical? Nobody is that expert.
Majestyk, I can’t “have it backwards” as you claim because I never argued in favor of the biblical creation account. I merely point out the fact that you concede above: Science, including evolutionary theory, does not explain the universe–does not rule out God–and it irks me that some scientists claim otherwise, on scientific rather than personal grounds.
That’s fair enough. I’m simply reading between the lines, and after your bit about the 2nd Law… well, when I hear that argument my eyebrows hit the ceiling like Wile E. Coyote’s.
I would agree with you that science does NOT rule out God, but this is weak tea. It also doesn’t rule out Aliens or the Loch Ness Monster on the logical grounds that we are under no obligation to prove a negative.
The Bible is frequently cited as prima facie evidence of the existence of God – his inspired word on the written page. The Bible simply isn’t credible on its face – either as allegory or as literal evidence. Many of its claims can’t be countenanced from Pg 1 – how am I to know where genuine information kicks in?
What does “oomph” mean? The natural argument for God seems rather logical to me. He represents the necessary cause. All things in the universe are contingent upon prior events, yet if the universe is finite there must be a necessary cause that exists without contingency. The concept of God fits that description. Perhaps something else fits that description too, I am not an expert in this field I don’t know. Either way God seems like a fine hypothesis to me. Especially considering the lack of testibility of any theories about T=0. Furthermore the God hypothesis offers other useful explanatory powers in non-scientific realms. ·3 hours ago
Is it novel? Does it have any power to predict the future behavior of systems or illuminate the past?
The existence of God representing a “Fine Hypothesis” is lacking oomph in the sense that it is interchangeable with any number of other hypotheses which produce the same result, therefore it is a trivial input.
It is also an affront to the notion of an ordered, predictable universe. What good are physical laws if some incorporeal ghost or shade can come along and suspend them at will?
And I thought we got our fill of him right here on Ricochet. ·2 hours ago
It was very embarrassing when Commentary started publishing that stuff. Not sure if they just wanted to be iconoclastic, or what…
If it takes so little effort to make something look ridiculous is it possible that it IS ridiculous?
… the point is not that it takes so little effort to make something look ridiculous. The point is that it only looks ridiculous when you refuse to exert any effort at all.
I think you would unpleasantly surprised at the amount of actual scholarship that goes into Christian theology. You are clearly not familiar with much (or any) of it, as your examples make evident, but I assure you, it is out there. Those things you cite are the exceptions rather than the rule.
Interestingly, you would use the same logic to both ridicule one position and defend another. The idea that not all Christian parishoners are theological scholars is proof positive that the whole is nonsense… yet, if I ask a specific question regarding evolution, your response is that not everyone needs to know the details; it is only important that someone does know, and from there we simply trust the experts.
What does “oomph” mean? The natural argument for God seems rather logical to me.
Is it novel? Does it have any power to predict the future behavior of systems or illuminate the past?
The existence of God representing a “Fine Hypothesis” is lacking oomph in the sense that it is interchangeable with any number of other hypotheses which produce the same result, therefore it is a trivial input.
It is also an affront to the notion of an ordered, predictable universe. What good are physical laws if some incorporeal ghost or shade can come along and suspend them at will? ·1 hour ago
Novelty isn’t a criteria in science. Old ideas can be as good as new ones. In fact unless the old ideas can be disproved or shown to be lacking they are usually preferred. If several theories serve equally well to explain something, that doesn’t actually diminish any of them it simply proves the need for further study.
Also the God hypothesis might be interchangeable with some other ideas with respect to the Big Bang, but it is not with respect to metaphysics. It has useful and drastically different applications in other fields.
… the point is not that it takes so little effort to make something look ridiculous. The point is that it only looks ridiculous when you refuse to exert any effort at all.
The difference being apples and oranges. Give 12 Biblical experts a chemistry experiment to perform and sufficient instructions and you’ll likely get consistent results across the 12.
Give those same experts the bible and you’ll get 12 different interpretations. The results with the Bible are entirely dependent upon the biases of the interpreter – it’s a cipher. People read into it what they want. See Westboro Baptist for reference.
On the contrary, I think that the vast majority of christians don’t understand fundamentally what it is that their faith asks them and can’t distinguish what makes theirs separate from others.
On experts, and whatnot, somebody whom I have read who has put in the requisite amount of effort is the Revered New Testament Scholar Bart Ehrman. What do you think his conclusion regarding the Bible’s veracity is?
I’m sorry, you can’t play the “Mistranslation!” game on this – it’s simply a load of manure. ·8 hours ago
No, it’s a shift in frame of reference from opaque to translucent atmospheres in the early earth.
Plants appear before sea creatures.
Yes, plants come before fish. That would include algae, lichens, seaweed, etc. Your problem with that would be….what? 410 million years ago (plants) is less recent than 380 million (fish). Neither list is exhaustive and that does reflect the fossil record: plant life existed before fish (and jellies, etc.).
By the way, since you also missed this: The lights in sky- are just lights. Not gods, not demons, not spirits- lights. Those searching for the origins of methodological naturalism need look no further than Genesis 1.
Your recommended reading for this evening is: http://www.reasons.org/articles/the-unraveling-of-starlight-and-time-2
and:http://www.reasons.org/articles/the-unraveling-of-starlight-and-time-2
Yes, plants come before fish. That would include algae, lichens, seaweed, etc. Your problem with that would be….what? 410 million years ago (plants) is less recent than 380 million (fish). Neither list is exhaustive and that does reflect the fossil record: plant life existed before fish (and jellies, etc.).
It clearly says “Let the Land produce Vegetation; seeds” etc… These land organisms (seeds in particular) didn’t exist up to 100 million years after the first fish, and you’re flatly ignoring the fact that birds come after the first dinosaurs… 150 million years ago. The Bible is wrong on the timing and order of the appearance of every important facet of life and leaves a bunch of important ones out entirely.
Look, if I had time to research alchemy or pogo-stick repair I would do that before I spent too much time on the Bible or your research projects.
If God were so diligent in dictating his word to his scribes you’d think he’d at least take the time to get the order of stuff right.
I’ll spend my spare time reading Sowell, Friedman and Hawking.
After 7,500 words, I expectsomething.
This is the second time on Ricochet I’ve allowed myself to read thousands of words from critics of evolution — the other being MJ Bubba’s series of posts and the 1000+ comments on them — without ever hearing an actual positive argument. It’s especially frustrating, given the frequent carping about how ill-treated evolution skeptics are on Ricochet.
You already know the answer. Getting them to admit it is a fruitless effort because you know what lies behind their recalcitrance.
Lurking in all of the gaps and filling in the holes around each and every questionable assumption lies the same putty: God.
The same people who are the carpers re: Evolution just happen to be the same ones who frequent evangelical and fundamentalist-type churches. There’s not much mystery there. They simply don’t want to admit where they sit before telling you where they stand.
Berlinski performs a magician’s trick: he points out holes for other people to examine, while refusing to take a position which might open his thoughts up to similar analysis and criticism.
That’s because to date there is no credible scientific explanation to counter evolution as way to understand how species may have evolved over hundreds of millions of years. For the Young Earth Creationist, the universe began roughly 10,000 to 20,000 years ago – give or take a few thousand years. For the proponent of Intelligent Design something miraculous happened around the Cambrian Explosion. Exactly what and how is not important nor worthy of explanation apparently. It just happened. Deal with it. Move on. No need to ask further questions. You can sift through the similar blather of the Discovery Institute, of which Berlinski is a senior fellow, that has yet to offer an alternative and testable hypothesis or theory…a lot of whining and carping however about how the scientific community is mean and ever bullying.
It is true what is being debated is not the science but the meaning of the science to our larger conception of reality and meaning. A debate about meaning a purpose though is not a scientific debate. It is a philosophical debate and a very important one at that. On one had we have a philosophy that sees the world as a structured whole driven by purpose and meaning and on the other hand we have a philosophy that sees the world as a meaningless garble of interacting particles blindly groping their way to oblivion.
Which of these philosophical views we accept will become the foundation for all the other philosophical constructs we create. It is not a trivial debate. Bad philosophy invariably leads to terrible results in everyday life.
What I appreciate about Berlinski and the ID crowd is that they are trying to argue against the bad philosophy that has taken up the mantle of Science to hide it’s own dark and nihilistic tendencies.
I just finished reading the Berlinski essay Mary linked a few days ago.
On the positive side of the ledger, there’s no denying that Berlinski is an incredibly skilled writer, and his righteous indignation against the arrogance and self-regard of the biological curia in general, and Dawkins in particular, is well-deserved. There’s also a puckishness to his writing on this subject that I have to admire, if only because the world needs intelligent curmudgeons skeptical of prevailing consensus.
But after 7,500 words of criticism for his opponents, I still don’t have any idea what Berlinskiactually believes . He makes no positive argument, posits no alternative hypothesis, nor offers any case of his own. Is he a Creationist? Does he believe in ID? Turtles all the way down? What explanation does he offer or endorse to explain speciation and the fossil record? I can guess, but what use is that?
After so many words, I expected an answer.
I also take issue with this:
But the gaps have been getting smaller for over a century, and have gotten smaller yet since Berlinski published his piece in 1996. To take just one dramatic example (Tikaalic would be another) all we had a few decades ago to confirm the bird/dinosaur hypothesis was some morphological similarities and Archaeopteryx; it was a hypothesis, but nothing more. Now, we have found so many examples of feathered dinosaurs, that we can’t even tell where therapods end and where birds begin.
If IDers or creationists want to earn the respect they so badly want, they need to make similar discoveries using their hypotheses.
Why is it necessary for Berlinski to forward an explanation if he has no explanation? One who has no explanation (at least not one he is so proud of to foist at others) is not thereby disqualified from pointing out flaws in others’ explanations. That is a service to truth, moreso than putting forward false explanations. Maybe the truth is, we can’t know or don’t yet know.
Majestyk, if you have time for Ricochet, you have time for pogo-styk repairs (but probably not time for much else).
He might say what he thinks probable; he might say what kinds of evidence or discoveries would sway him one way or another; he might let us know what he thinks so that he can be subject to the kind of criticism he offers. After 7,500 words, I expect something.
This is the second time on Ricochet I’ve allowed myself to read thousands of words from critics of evolution — the other being MJ Bubba’s series of posts and the 1000+ comments on them — without ever hearing an actual positive argument. It’s especially frustrating, given the frequent carping about how ill-treated evolution skeptics are on Ricochet.
F
Which of these philosophical views we accept will become the foundation for all the other philosophical constructs we create. It is not a trivial debate. Bad philosophy invariably leads to terrible results in everyday life.
What I appreciate about Berlinski and the ID crowd is that they are trying to argue against the bad philosophy that has taken up the mantle of Science to hide it’s own dark and nihilistic tendencies.
Fair point, but I wish they’d make that criticism more narrowly.
Which of these philosophical views we accept will become the foundation for all the other philosophical constructs we create. It is not a trivial debate. Bad philosophy invariably leads to terrible results in everyday life.
What I appreciate about Berlinski and the ID crowd is that they are trying to argue against the bad philosophy that has taken up the mantle of Science to hide it’s own dark and nihilistic tendencies.
Fair point, but I wish they’d make that criticism more narrowly. Beggars can’t be choosers, though. ·8 minutes ago
You and me both. In fact I think they would be more persuasive and effective if they argued the philosophy more than the science. In fact I found Dr. Berlinski’s book “The Devil’s Delusion” rather good. It’s one weakness coming in the form of his usual attack on evolution as a theory.
And I thought we got our fill of him right here on Ricochet.
Water AND earth. Before light. Gobbledygook.
Majestyk,
It is at least partially about making a good-faith effort to interpret a text as it was intended to be interpreted. Do you not think that this seeming contradiction would have been clear to readers of these very early texts at the time? Why, then, wouldn’t the author simply change them? These sorts of surface-contradictions didn’t pose much of a problem for the Jewish scholars who wrote the Talmud, and they have not posed much of a problem for Christian thinkers ever since…. Yet, they are continually used by folks like Bill Maher and other atheists as proof positive that the Bible is false. It is very easy to make something sound ridiculous when you want to. But honest Biblical scholarship has always addressed those issues head-on. They are not the smoking gun that many seem to think they are.
None. And all is meaningless and must lead to nihilism unless you believe in a higher power, because that offers much in the way of verifiable fact, right?
He remains an unrepentant atheist despite this dire prediction?
Perhaps he should investigate the Anthropic Principle.
…I think that the vast majority of christians don’t understand fundamentally what it is that their faith asks them…
Maybe (some) atheists don’t understand what evolutionary belief asks of them:
Hubris.
None. And all is meaningless and must lead to nihilism unless you believe in a higher power, because that offers much in the way of verifiable fact, right?
He remains an unrepentant atheist despite this dire prediction?
Perhaps he should investigate the Anthropic Principle. ·August 30, 2013 at 7:10am
I’m sorry but to me the Anthropic Principle is no different in force and reason than saying “Because God Willed it.” In fact nothing about the anthropic principle seems that scientific. Which only reinforces my point that what is at stake isn’t science but philosophy. A scientific theory doesn’t force its knowers into any particular philosophical construct certainly not at such a general level as theism vs. atheism.
I’m sorry but to me the Anthropic Principle is no different in force and reason than saying “Because God Willed it.” In fact nothing about the anthropic principle seems that scientific. Which only reinforces my point that what is at stake isn’t science but philosophy. A scientific theory doesn’t force its knowers into any particular philosophical construct certainly not at such a general level as theism vs. atheism. ·22 hours ago
Ah, but that’s the rub isn’t it? At the point at which you have to make your mind up between which claim of philosophy you want to respect, all supernatural claims are functionally the same, aren’t they? They are all equally unverifiable and offer nothing in the way of testable hypotheses. Whether God or Shiva or Xenu willed it to be, it is impossible to tell the difference.
But there is a difference between “some God” and “no god.”
People talk past each other, scientists insisting upon proof adequate to support “knowledge” (whatever that is) and believers being satisfied with proof adequate to support belief.
The truth is, most of us go through life making all our important decisions based (at best) solely upon knowledge sufficient to support belief. Does this make us irrational or unreasonable or superstitious?
What’s irrational is to expect or demand proof adequate to support knowledge in important matters in which the most one can reasonable hope for is proof adequate to support belief.
Equally irrational is an assertion that proof fully adequate to support a reasonable belief is sufficient for knowledge. Both scientists and believers do this.