The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions

I suppose most people like to at least appear to be open-minded, but sometimes I wonder how often (say) a conservative Republican sits down to read Noam Chomsky's political screeds, or a dedicated leftist sits down to enjoy Adam Smith. I picked up "The Devil's Delusion" in just that spirit, fully expecting to find a book which would argue against most of my own beliefs. I wasn't really expecting something as brilliant, challenging, and engaging as this. If you think that the only people who don't believe in evolution are Fundamentalist knuckle-dragging Georgia swamp-dwellers, you're in for a big surprise. Berlinski himself is an agnostic of Jewish descent, an astonishingly erudite man and a brilliant thinker. He also writes frightfully well. And it is often hard to disagree with him. As he notes in the opening pages of this book --- concerning religion, God, and the rest: "I do not know whether any of this is true. I am certain that the scientific community does not know that it is false." You might want to read those two sentences again, because they form the logical heart and soul of this book. Berlinski is not on a mission to preach religion; his task is to make plain just how little we actually know about the universe, and to try and re-awaken our sense of wonder. In this, he succeeds brilliantly. The book cannot really be summarized in a brief review, but let me try to show you at least his thoughts about cosmology and the Big Bang. First, he makes it clear that the atheist camp has always had a hankering for an eternal universe (funny, that describes me, too) and a huge dislike for a universe which had an actual beginning, and then he demonstrates that all of current cosmological theory and knowledge points to the Big Bang as a singularity --- and not a universe which is constantly expanding and then contracting. So it comes Scarily Close to "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." He then amuses himself (and us) by skewering all of the "objective scientists" who are trying to wiggle out of this "difficulty." It really does sound like "objective scientists" accept the "scientific facts" which suit their own biases. "We have no idea how the ordered physical, moral, mental, aesthetic and social world in which we live could ever have arisen from the seething anarchy of the elementary particles." One thing I can add is that, the last time I checked, we don't even know how genes and RNA manage to control the color of the eyes. We may be able to draw the hereditary chart and point to the right place in the DNA, but we have no idea at all how the genotype turns into the phenotype. Berlinski is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, which is a place devoted to the idea of Intelligent Design, but, as an agnostic, he's something of a maverick even there. You can find him in Wikipedia and on YouTube as well.

In the documentary movie Expelled by Ben Stein, one of those interviewed was David Berlinski, author of the book under review, for his assessment of evolution, intelligent design, and the dogmatic opposition to any criticism of Darwinism by the scientific establishment. As far as I know, this book is Berlinski's first book-length criticism of Darwinism and especially of what has come to be known as scientism (the atheistic religion that pretends that it is based on science). The interesting title of Berlinski's book comes from an amalgamation of Richard Dawkins' book The God Delusion, McGrath's response The Dawkins Delusion?: Atheist Fundamentalism and the Denial of the Divine, and another book by Dawkins titled A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love. Berlinski describes himself as a "secular Jew," and says that his "religious education did not take. I can barely remember a word of Hebrew. I cannot pray." Although he does not, to my knowledge, say he is an agnostic, it seems that that must be what he is. He has a Ph.D. from Princeton University and has taught mathematics and philosophy at universities in the United States and in France. He has written math and science books such as A Tour of the Calculus, The Advent of the Algorithm: The 300-Year Journey from an Idea to the Computer, and Newton's Gift: How Sir Isaac Newton Unlocked the System of the World. In approaching what may well be the most controversial and defining topic of our time, I suppose that one of two approaches can be taken. One would be a serious presentation of the scientific facts and attempting to reason with those who are opposed to your point of view. The other approach may well be to ridicule your opponents, call them stupid, and make sport of the issue. Berlinski has chosen the latter approach. However, after calling them stupid, he gives detailed rationale as to why the charge is appropriate. In a sense I suppose he combines the two approaches. His dry humor is throughout the book that could not be pulled off by anyone of lesser brilliance, but shines more brightly in some sections. Here and there his humor evokes out-loud laughter from the reader, although no doubt that depends somewhat on the reader's worldview. Berlinski takes them all on by name and pulls no punches. He seems to take great delight in pointing out their errors of logic, their incorrect scientific facts, their gross extrapolations, their superficial understanding of science, the absurdities of what they actually profess to believe, and their lack of humility before the mysteries of life. For an agnostic, if that is what he is, he seems to have admiration for theologians and others who struggle to make sense of life, and surprisingly, and delightfully to me, he quotes Scripture to make some of his points. A strange prophet he, but then God can obtain praise from the rocks if it please Him to do so. The book has ten chapters. The chapter titles are as follows: Chapter 1. No God

I have read several of Berlinski's books, and this is the best and the most fun read. He takes down by several notches some of the better-known and more arrogant atheists--Richard Dawkins, Peter Atkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett (one of the "brights")--with clever barbs and clear reasoning. One of the one-star reviewers, in an otherwise rather thoughtful review, made this baffling statement: "His only option is to put forth a case that is ultimately (and desperately) designed to protect Christianity by defending anything which science cannot disprove." Berlinski, a self-described "secular Jew," is surely doing no such thing, and he makes this clear in his preface: speaking of religious traditions, he says, "I do not know whether any of this is true. I am certain that the scientific community does not know that it is false." His book is written as a caution to the over-reach of certain people in the scientific community who have attempted to draw conclusions about religion and God from facts or hypotheses in science. In this he does an admirable job.

This book is so well written that superlatives seem inadequate. Berlinski begins by stating that he is not religious and has no particular religious axe to grind. He is a mathematician and scientist. Yet he skewers science in general, and Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and Harris in particular with well-reasoned argument, simple yet cogent analysis, and more humor than I would have thought possible for this subject. Berlinksi makes it clear that he in no way means to disparage or belittle Science. He is only trying to show how Science has been twisted by The Four Horsemen in an attempt to prove an anti-religious point of view, and how that twisting promises so much and delivers so little. I have read Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris (I could not force myself through Dennett's doorstop of a book), and I thoroughly enjoyed each one as I read it. Yet, reading David Berlinski's book made me honestly question what I found so thought-provoking or convincing about any of them. This book is well worth reading if for no other reason than raising some unexpectely challenging questions, and providing you with some innovative and fascinating insights into ideas you might not have considered. I really liked this book !!!

Any book by David Berlinski is bound to be fun. He is simply one of the most erudite writers in popular science and mathematics today. Those who particularly like seeing sacred cows treated with a hint of sarcasm and irreverance will enjoy his writing on almost any subject, but this book, attacking the "new atheism" as it does, is especially delightful if for no other reason than for how pompous writers like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchins are in their approach to this subject. In brief, Berlinski's argument boils down to three main points: there is nothing in science proper that undermines religion (a point that used to be widely recognized and even extolled by writers like SJ Gould), most of the new atheists badly misunderstand even the most rudimentary arguments of theology and are not logically consistent, and finally that much of science has become rather dogmatic, like a new religion. I think Berlinski does an excellent job addressing all three of these points, the first of which should be more or less self evident. Claims, for example, that one "should" only believe in physical or visible evidence are not, in and of themselves, empirical claims. Indeed, I have friends who resolutely insist that materialism is "all there is" while remaining blissfully unaware of the fact that such a statement could not arise from strictly empirical observation. Regarding the new atheist approach to Aquinas, Berlinski correctly notes that the critics of St. Thomas really do not understand his arguments. Take for example the famous cosmological argument of Thomas Aquinas. In its simplest form, this argument takes the form of a syllogism. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began at some point. Therefore the universe has a cause. Agnostic that he is, Berlinski correctly notes that this is not actually an argument for God. It is an argument that the universe began to exist, meaning it required a cause. Aquinas, of course, argued this cause was "God" and very specifically the God of the New Testament and Catholic Church. But one need not arrive at this conclusion. It is possible that the universe simply goes on forever. One event causes another and so on back to infinity. (This was the position of David Hume and it has been popular among the atheist set ever since.) Still, Berlinski askes, if we saw a row of dominoes falling, "would we, without pause say that no first domino set the other dominoes toppling. Really?"[p. 69] Of course not. We fall back upon such reasoning only when discussing God. But of course Hume's argument has been rendered pointless by the fact that 20th century cosmology did in fact discover the universe had a beginning, and much of cosmology since then has been an effort to try to explain away the obvious implications of this. (One should also consult on this matter God and the Astronomers by another thoughtful agnostic, Robert Jastrow.) Scientists too, it seems, for a