David Berlinski Quotes

Darwinism is not a sufficient condition for a phenomenon like Nazism but I think it's certainly a necessary one, ~ David Berlinski

Has anyone provided proof of God's inexistence? Not even close. Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Not even close. Have our sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close. Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought? Close enough. Has rationalism and moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral? Not close enough. Has secularism in the terrible 20th century been a force for good? Not even close, to being close. Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy in the sciences? Close enough. Does anything in the sciences or their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational? Not even in the ball park. Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt? Dead on. ~ David Berlinski

While science has nothing of value to say on the great and aching questions of life, death, love and meaning, what the religious traditions of mankind have said forms a coherent body of thought ... There is recompense for suffering. A principle beyond selfishness is at work in the cosmos. . I do not know whether any of this is true. I am certain that the scientific community does not know that it is false. ~ David Berlinski

We are finite creatures, bound to this place and this time, and helpless before an endless expanse. It is within the calculus that for the first time the infinite is charmed into compliance, its luxuriance subordinated to the harsh concept of a limit. ~ David Berlinski

Although every novel is derived directly from another novel, there is really only one novel, the Quixote. ~ David Berlinski

Validity is the touchstone of inference, and truth of judgment: the fact that vichyssoise is cold ratifies the judgment that vichyssoise is, indeed, cold, and the judgment that vichyssoise is cold expresses the fact that vichyssoise is cold. ~ David Berlinski

No scientific theory touches on the mysteries that the religious tradition addresses. A man asking why his days are short and full of suffering is not disposed to turn to algebraic quantum field theory for the answer. The answers that prominent scientific figures have offered are remarkable in their shallowness. ~ David Berlinski

Whatever the degree to which Darwin may have "misled science into a dead end," the biologist Shi V. Liu observed in commenting on Koonin's paper, "we may still appreciate the role of Darwin in helping scientists [win an] upper hand in fighting against the creationists. ~ David Berlinski

Just who has imposed on the suffering human race poison gas, barbed wire, high explosives, experiments in eugenics, the formula for zyklon b, heavy artillery, pseudo-scientific justifications for mass murder, cluster bombs, attack submarines, napalm, intercontinental missiles , military space platforms and nuclear weapons? If memory serves it was not the Vatican. ~ David Berlinski

No man is obliged to be what he might have been. ~ David Berlinski

Before you can ask 'Is Darwinian theory correct or not?', You have to ask the preliminary question 'Is it clear enough so that it could be correct?'. That's a very different question. One of my prevailing doctrines about Darwinian theory is 'Man, that thing is just a mess. It's like looking into a room full of smoke.' Nothing in the theory is precisely, clearly, carefully defined or delineated. It lacks all of the rigor one expects from mathematical physics, and mathematical physics lacks all the rigor one expects from mathematics. So we're talking about a gradual descent down the level of intelligibility until we reach evolutionary biology. ~ David Berlinski

The overall structure of the calculus is simple. The subject is defined by a fantastic leading idea, one basic axiom, a calm and profound intellectual invention, a deep property, two crucial definitions, one ancillary definition, one major theorem, and the fundamental theorem of the calculus.
The fantastic leading idea: the real world may be understood in terms of the real numbers.
The basic axiom: brings the real numbers into existence.
The calm and profound invention: the mathematical function.
The deep property: continuity.
The crucial definitions: instantaneous speed and the area underneath a curve.
The ancillary definition: a limit
The major theorem: the mean value theorem.
The fundamental theorem of the calculus is the fundamental theorem of the calculus.
These are the massive load-bearing walls and buttresses of the subject. ~ David Berlinski

If the calculus is much like a cathedral, its construction the work of centuries, it remained until the nineteenth century a cathedral suspiciously suspended in midair, the thing simply hanging there, with no one absolutely convinced that one day the gorgeous and elaborate structure would not come crashing down and fracture in a thousand pieces. ~ David Berlinski

Arithmetic is where the content lies, and not logic; but logic prompts certainty, and not arithmetic. ~ David Berlinski

The advent of militant atheism marks a reaction - a lurid but natural reaction - to the violence of the Islamic world. ~ David Berlinski

Darwin's theory of evolution is the last of the great nineteenth-century mystery religions. And as we speak it is now following Freudians and Marxism into the Nether regions, and I'm quite sure that Freud, Marx and Darwin are commiserating one with the other in the dark dungeon where discarded gods gather. ~ David Berlinski

Did you imagine that science was a disinterested pursuit of the truth? Well, you were wrong. ~ David Berlinski

As its campfires glow against the dark, every culture tells stories to itself about how the gods lit up the morning sky and set the wheel of being into motion. The great scientific culture of the West
our culture
is no exception. The calculus is the story this world first told itself as it became the modern world. ~ David Berlinski

The definition of a limit is essentially his [Cauchy's] creation and is as much of a miracle as those fantastic Swiss clocks of the period in which hundreds of gleaming cogs are made to celebrate not only the time and date but the phases of the moon. ~ David Berlinski

There are gaps in the fossil graveyard, places where there should be intermediate forms, but where there is nothing whatsoever instead. No paleontologist..denies that this is so. It is simply a fact, Darwin's theory and the fossil record are in conflict. ~ David Berlinski

An axiomatic system comprises axioms and theorems and requires a certain amount of hand-eye coordination before it works. A formal system comprises an explicit list of symbols, an explicit set of rules governing their cohabitation, an explicit list of axioms, and, above all, an explicit list of rules explicitly governing the steps that the mathematician may take in going from assumptions to conclusions. No appeal to meaning nor to intuition. Symbols lose their referential powers; inferences become mechanical. ~ David Berlinski

Ultimately, Leibniz argued, there are only two absolutely simple concepts, God and Nothingness. From these, all other concepts may be constructed, the world, and everything within it, arising from some primordial argument between the deity and nothing whatsoever. And then, by some inscrutable incandescent insight, Leibniz came to see that what is crucial in what he had written is the alternation between God and Nothingness. And for this, the numbers 0 and 1 suffice. ~ David Berlinski

The world of shapes, lines, curves, and solids is as varied as the world of numbers, and it is only our long-satisfied possession of Euclidean geometry that offers us the impression, or the illusion, that it has, that world, already been encompassed in a manageable intellectual structure. The lineaments of that structure are well known: as in the rest of life, something is given and something is gotten; but the logic behind those lineaments is apt to pass unnoticed, and it is the logic that controls the system. ~ David Berlinski

No doubt, the theory of evolution will continue to play the singular role in the life of our secular culture that it has always played. The theory is unique among scientific instruments in being cherished not for what it contains, but for what it lacks. There are in Darwin's scheme no biotic laws, no Bauplan as in German natural philosophy, no special creation, no elan vital, no divine guidance or transcendental forces. The theory functions simply as a description of matter in one of its modes, and living creatures are said to be something that the gods of law indifferently sanction and allow. ~ David Berlinski

But of all the human emotions, curiosity is the one least subject to the general proscription against gluttony, and once engaged, even if engaged initially in the service of religion, it has a tendency to grow relentlessly, until in the end the scholar becomes curious about the nature of revelation itself. ~ David Berlinski

It is in the world of things and places, times and troubles and turbid
processes, that mathematics is not so much applied as illustrated. ~ David Berlinski

For all the great dreams profitlessly invested in the digital computer, it is nonetheless true that not since the framers of the American Constitution took seriously the idea that all men are created equal has an idea so transformed the material conditions of life, the expectations of the race. ~ David Berlinski

Leibniz endeavored to provide an account of inference and judgment involving the mechanical play of symbols and very little else. The checklists that result are the first of humanity's intellectual artifacts. They express, they explain, and so they ratify a power of the mind. And, of course, they are artifacts in the process of becoming algorithms. ~ David Berlinski

Some philosophers see into themselves, and some into their times; still others forge an alliance with the future. ~ David Berlinski

However good an argument in philosophy may happen to be, it is generally not good enough. ~ David Berlinski

After comparing more than two thousand DNA samples, an American molecular geneticist, Dean Hamer, concluded that a person's capacity to believe in God is linked to his brain chemicals. Of all things! Why not his urine? Perhaps it will not be amiss to observe that Dr. Hamer has made the same claim about homosexuality, and if he has refrained from arguing that a person's capacity to believe in molecular genetics is linked to a brain chemical, it is, no doubt, owing to a prudent sense that once that door is open God knows how and when anyone will ever slam it shut again. ~ David Berlinski

In thinking about these questions I have been stimulated by criticisms of the prevailing scientific world picture ... by the defenders of intelligent design. Even though writers like Michael Behe and Stephen C. Meyer are motivated at least in part by their religious beliefs, the empirical arguments they offer against the likelihood that the origin of life and its evolutionary history can be fully explained by physics and chemistry are of great interest in themselves. Another skeptic, David Berlinski, has brought out these problems vividly without reference to the design inference. Even if one is not drawn to the alternative of an explanation by the actions of a designer, the problems that these iconoclasts pose for the orthodox scientific consensus should be taken seriously. They do not deserve the scorn with which they are commonly met. It is manifestly unfair. ~ Thomas Nagel

I know now that it's the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is opposite of hate; and it's the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. ~ Gregory David Roberts

I've been interviewed for hundreds of magazine articles, and they come out incredibly goofy about 90 percent of the time. ~ David D. Burns

Cultural contamination that is directed outward is always seen as 'enlightenment. ~ David Brin

I think the future is whatever I'm willing to make it. ~ David Cook

I was on a very bumpy plane ride, an overnight flight. I was so miserable, and I pulled out 'David Copperfield,' and I forgot how scared and tired I was, and I thought, 'This is what reading should be.' I'm utterly transported out of my current situation. ~ Jennifer Egan

I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect ... always when I have done I feel it would have been better if I had not fished. ~ Henry David Thoreau

I've been coming to this circle for about five years, and measuring
it. The diameter and the circumference are constantly changing, but
the radius stays the same. Which brings me to the number 5. There are
five letters in the word Blaine. Now, if you mix up the letters in the
word Blaine, mix 'em around, eventually, you'll come up with Nebali.
Nebali. The name of a planet in a galaxy way, way, way... way far
away. And another thing. Once you go into that circle, the weather
never changes. It is always 67 degrees with a 40% chance of rain. ~ David Cross

War creates peace like hate creates love. ~ David L. Wilson

It's so unique. Wilson Park is just such a gem. It's in a convenient location. ~ David Wright

If anyone or anything tries to curse or kill the Goodness at the Center of all things, it will just keep coming back to life. Forever Easter. ~ David Housholder

Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them. ~ Henry David Thoreau

A few years ago I lost one of my dearest friends. He died at age 53 - heart attack. David is gone, but he was one of my very special friends. I used to say of David that if I was stuck in a foreign jail somewhere accused unduly and if they would allow me one phone call, I would call David. Why? He would come and get me. That's a friend. Somebody who would come and get you. ~ Jim Rohn

Age doesn't bother me. So many of my heroes were older guys. It's the lack of years left that weighs far heavier on me than the age that I am. ~ David Bowie

I want you to really be able to grasp the wonder of it, the marvel of it, the size of it and really be able to get a good conception of its magnificence and it tremendous colossal gigantic stupendous size and beauty and splendour! ~ David Berg

There is an ending [to Infinite Jest] as far as I'm concerned. Certain kind of parallel lines are supposed to start converging in such a way that an "end" can be projected by the reader somewhere beyond the right frame. If no such convergence or projection occured to you, then the book's failed for you. ~ David Foster Wallace

No technology will win. Technology itself will win. ~ David Agus

We're still going to be learning in Heaven. We will still be developing and are not yet absolutely perfect. That's what the future is all about - to continue the learning process that we have begun here. We've all still got a lot to learn! ~ David Berg

Here people cycled with a reckless swagger, talking on the phone and eating breakfast. ~ David Nicholls

The interesting thing that happens for many people when they first start meditating is that they'll be doing it for a few months, and they will begin to change, but the experience is so subtle that they're not even aware of it. ~ David Lynch

Life tells you to take the elevator, but love tells you to take the stairs. ~ David Levithan

I think I am seeing more clearly now than ever. ~ David Hockney

The mass of man lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation, is confirmed desperation. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Every nowhere is somewhere[...] ~ David Mitchell

She decided no human man would ever touch her again. the doors to her body and heart were already locked, and she would give the key to only one man, perhaps someday ... perhaps never ... but all the same she didnt care about falling in love, or getting married, or any of that, anymore. it was too late for mortal men to stake any sort of claim to her affections. if she grews old and died alone, it would be in full posession of her heart.
and if she ever gave it, she would give it eternally, and without regret. ~ Dianne Sylvan

The fact that I have a little ten-megapixel camera with me all the time, is way better than having the greatest camera in the world sitting at home on a desk instead of on my shoulder. ~ David Burnett

A goal is a dream taken seriously. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Dreamt I stood in a china shop so crowded from floor to far-off ceiling with shelves of porcelain antiques, etc. that moving a muscle would cause several to fall and smash to bits. Exactly what happened but instead of a crashing noise, an august chord rang out, half cello, half celeste, D major (?), held for four beats. My wrist knocked a Ming vase affair off its pedestal-E flat. Whole string section, glorious, transcendant, angels wept. Deliberately now, smashed a figurine of an ox for the next note, then a milkmaid, then Saturday's Child-orgy of shrapnel filled the air, divine harmonies my head. ~ David Mitchell

I'm not going to sit here and bash the manager, we have to regroup. ~ David Wells

The high-definition picture is still a perspective picture. That's the real problem, the perspective picture. ~ David Hockney

The standard is clear. If something we think, see, hear, or do distances us from the Holy Ghost, then we should stop thinking, seeing, hearing, or doing that thing ... Because we estrange the Spirit of the Lord when we engage in activities we know we should shun, then such things definitely are not for us. ~ David A. Bednar

Here's the bottom line: you and I struggle with the faithfulness of God, not because he has been unfaithful, but because we have. ~ Paul David Tripp

My day begins a little before 6 A.M. I never set an alarm clock. ~ David H. Murdock

It's now generally accepted that Mesmer was actually treating psychosomatic illness, and he profited mightily from people's gullibility. In retrospect, his theories and practices sound ridiculous, but in truth, the story of Mesmer parallels many stories of today. It's not so ridiculous to imagine people falling prey to products, procedures, and health claims that are brilliantly marketed. Every day we hear of some news item related to health. We are bombarded by messages about our health - good, bad, and confusingly contradictory. And we are literally mesmerized by these messages. Even the smart, educated, cautious, and skeptical consumer is mesmerized. It's hard to separate truth from fiction, and to know the difference between what's healthful and harmful when the information and endorsements come from "experts. ~ David Perlmutter

I want to marry and have kids. The things we all want. ~ David Zinczenko

Many fantasy novels - 'Lord of the Rings', for instance, or 'Lavondyss' by Robert Holdstock - are beautifully written. Geoff Ryman's 'The Child Garden' is exquisite and utterly beguiling. Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast' trilogy is an astonishing piece of multi-faceted storytelling. So quality of writing does not condemn the genre. ~ David Gemmell

In New York, you are constantly faced with this very urgent decision that you have to make, about every twenty minutes ... you have to decide, immediately, you have to go "Ohmigod. Do I look at the most beautiful woman in the world or the craziest guy in the world?" ~ David Cross

Global warming has long since passed from scientific hypothesis to the realm of pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo. ~ David Deming

People fascinate me. Consciously or unconsciously, I have been studying their behavior all my life. ~ David Cobley

It doesnt always help us to love the world,but it does prevent us from hating the world. ~ Gregory David Roberts

Clashing expectations are what most consistently derail any team, and especially a culturally diverse team. So if you take the time to "define" the goal carefully upfront, you've addressed one of the most difficult and important parts of the innovative process. ~ David Livermore