David Berlinski (born 1942) is an American mathematician and philosopher. He has written books about mathematics and the history of science as well as fiction. He is a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, an organization that promotes the pseudoscientific idea of intelligent design.
Early life and education David Berlinski was born in the United States in 1942 to German-born Jewish refugees who had fled to New York City from France, where the Vichy government was collaborating with Nazi Germany. His father was composer Herman Berlinski and his mother was musician Sina Berlinski (née Goldfein), who was a pianist, piano teacher and voice coach. Both of his parents were born and raised in Leipzig, where they studied at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig before escaping to Paris, where they married and pursued further studies. German was David Berlinski's first spoken language.Berlinski 1968
Berlinski graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University in 1968. His doctoral dissertation was titled, "The Well-tempered Wittgenstein". His doctoral advisor at Princeton was the philosopher George Pitcher.
Academic career After obtaining his doctorate, Berlinski was a research assistant in biology at Columbia University.Berlinski 1972 He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Columbia in mathematics and molecular biology.
Berlinski is a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, a Seattle-based think tank that promotes the idea of intelligent design, a pseudoscientific form of creationism. Berlinski shares the movement's rejection of the evidence for evolution, but he disavows belief in intelligent design, or in any other explanation for the origin of life.
Author
Mathematics and biology Berlinski has written works on systems analysis, the history of differential topology, analytic philosophy, and the philosophy of mathematics. Berlinski has authored books for the general public on mathematics and the history of mathematics. These include A Tour of the Calculus (1995) on calculus, The Advent of the Algorithm (2000) on algorithms, Newton's Gift (2000) on Isaac Newton, and Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics (2005). Another book, The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky (2003), aimed to redeem astrology as "rationalistic"; Publishers Weekly described the book as offering "self-consciously literary vignettes ... ostentatious erudition and metaphysical pseudo-profundities". In Black Mischief (1988), Berlinski wrote "Our paper became a monograph. When we had completed the details, we rewrote everything so that no one could tell how we came upon our ideas or why. This is the standard in mathematics."Berlinski 1988, p. 167
Berlinski's books have received mixed reviews. Newton's Gift, The King of Infinite Space and The Advent of the Algorithm were criticized on MathSciNet for containing historical and mathematical inaccuracies. (subscription required). (subscription required).Philosopher Wilfried Sieg pointed to problems ranging "from tedious discussions of logical calculi to incorrect formulations of the conversion rules for the λ-calculus, from an unsatisfactory definition of primitive recursive functions to the claim that Gödel already in 1931 gave "for the first time" a precise mathematical description of the notion of an algorithm. These are just examples where important technical material is not properly "under control" and where significant historical matters are not accurately presented." (subscription required). The Mathematical Association of America review of A Tour of the Calculus by Fernando Q. Gouvêa recommended that professors have students read the book to appreciate the overarching historical and philosophical picture of calculus. Journalist Ron Rosenbaum described the book in Observer as "an eloquent and elegant tribute to the beauty and power of mathematics". Ad Meskins, writing in The Mathematical Gazette, criticized it for inaccuracy and lack of clarity: "I haven't learned anything from [Berlinski's] book except that the novel of mathematics is best written in another style." A review in the Notices of the AMS found that Berlinski's metaphor-heavy prose made his "tour" of calculus like a trip along the Amazon River, isolated in an air-conditioned boat with tour guides who are "chatty and slightly manic, willing to invent a bit when certain knowledge runs out."
Collaborations Berlinski, along with fellow Discovery Institute associates Michael Behe and William A. Dembski, tutored Ann Coulter on science and evolution for her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism (2006).Coulter 2007, p. 319: "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."
Berlinski was a longtime friend of Marcel-Paul Schützenberger (1920–1996), with whom he collaborated on an unfinished and unpublished mathematically based manuscript that he described as being "devoted to the Darwinian theory of evolution". Synopsis: "A memorial page for Marcel-Paul Schützenberger, with contributions from Herbert Wilf, Dominique Foata, David Berlinski, Dominique Perrin, Richard Askey and Moshé Flato." Berlinski dedicated The Advent of the Algorithm to Schützenberger.
Fiction He is the author of several detective novels featuring private investigator Aaron Asherfeld: A Clean Sweep (1993), Less Than Meets the Eye (1994) and The Body Shop (1996), and a number of shorter works of fiction and non-fiction.
Personal life Berlinski's daughter Claire Berlinski is a journalist and his son Mischa Berlinski is a writer.
Bibliography
Non-fiction books
Fiction books
Articles in peer-reviewed journals
Part 2 and part 3 published in Synthese, 36 (3) (November 1977), and 37 (2) (February 1978), respectively ().
Articles in journals and newspapers
Notes
References
External links