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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 An outstanding response to the philosophically impoverished screeds of Dawkins, Hitchens, et alia Nov 19, 2009
Berlinski's latest work is a beautifully written, intellectually powerful critique of the philosphically bankrupt and sloppy, science-addled arguments for an atheistic worldview proffered by Dawkins and his admirers (such as the Guinness-lapping Hitchens, who seems to have had some trouble with an Anglican priest at some point in his English public school boyhood. Only that explains the bullying prose and wild vitriol of his silly book). Treat yourself to an elegant book penned by one of the most brilliant intellectuals of our time. Berlinski has a highly distinguished background in math and philosophy. He is also a secular Jew; he has no commitment to some trite idea of "God" or creationism. Any reviews that claim this are simply -- and utterly -- wrong.
The majority of the petulant negative reviews ignore Berlinski's devastating arguments concerning the serious flaws of Darwinian theory, or the reviews just stubbornly dismiss the book out of hand because the authors of the reviews don't care for the idea that (gasp) Darwinian theory could -- in fact -- be deeply, deeply flawed. Science-based arguments (NOT philosophically based) arguments refuting the existence of a god may -- in fact -- be incoherent. Berlinski recognizes that significant, crippling philosophical problems plague Darwinism. If you can tolerate nuanced and graceful thinking, then this book is for you.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Well Worth Your Time Nov 14, 2009
In response to those who harshly criticized this book, I would suggest that they possibly misunderstood the premise. It is a work, more than anything else, designed to ask questions -- some of which no one in the scientific community is asking. After reading several of the negative reviews, it occurs to me that most people don't understand Berlinsky's humor; there are several points in the book which may come across as incredibly arrogant, but are more geared toward lightening the mood while at once making the reader think for themselves.
Berlinsky doesn't so much answer all the important questions in this book as he does ask ones that seem to be neglected in this ongoing debate. I thoroughly enjoyed it and it gave me a new perspective on a subject I have already read a fair amount on.
It is not a long book, and so as the title to my review says, it is well worth your time. Don't read it as a book with all the answers; read it as a book by a professor who is trying to get people to think for themselves rather than accept everything at face value because a "scientist" said it.
2 of 5 found the following review helpful:
I beleive Nov 11, 2009
I believe Mr. Berlinski, as a non-religious philosopher, has smashed against the rocks many of the "perfected" human arguments of scientific atheism. Whether they break against those rocks or not, is for each reader to decide for themselves. This indoctrinated atheist of 32 years-turned agnostic-turned believer appreciates Berlinski's thoughtful and honest work.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
A very persuasive dissenting voice Nov 08, 2009
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.
4 of 5 found the following review helpful:
A militant agnostic Nov 06, 2009
Obviously the author has been irritated beyond measure by cocksure atheists, notably Richard Dawkins, and enjoys himself pulling apart their overreaching assumptions. Nowhere does he present any kind of a defence of religion. He is well versed in physics - he has read and understood Goedel's work on rotating
universes, for instance - but notes the more-or-less dead end that has been reached. In a metaphor powerful for physicists, he likens the four great developments: classical mechanics as per Newton; electromagnetism as per
Clerk-Maxwell; special and general relativity as per Einstein; and quantum mechanics as per Heisenberg, Born, Pauli and Dirac; to four great cathedrals, surrounded by fuzz, with somewhat incompatible teachings.
There is certainly a moral element to this book, but it is skeptical and
pessimistic. Berlinsky does not say, but would probably agree with the statement, that without God we are screwed, but we know nothing of God least of all what or who He is.
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