Science After Babel

I agree with noted author Dr. William Demski's review, "Science After Babel is a literary triumph," "Berlinski masterfully exposes the hubris of scientific pretensions," and "This book testifies to the author's penetrating intellect."Then there is Dr. David Gelernter (Yale Professor of Computer Science), "If I were picking two books to be required reading for every college student... Science After Babel would be one. A striking and beautiful and absolutely necessary book... Berlinski at his spectacular best."Reading this book, I found that Berlinski is uniquely gifted to assess (critique?) science in a provocative and entertaining way. His use of descriptive adjectives and adverbs to make his points gave my brain a strain, so to speak, on many pages; to the point I had to put the book down for a moment to take in his brilliance and gift of masterful communication. His writing is miles above any college lecture I can remember. Mixed in with his "penetrating intellect" are moments of wry delivery that cause one to imagine he may be smirking a bit behind the pages. In addition to thought-provoking technical critiques of science (and self-appointed scientific philosophers), he seems to sit across the table from you and weave a story that no one else has been able to grasp. And it is accomplished more in prose than courtroom-style arguments.Peter Robinson is a skilled interviewer with a knack of wringing out definitions and explanations from top thinkers with subtle and oblique techniques... rare amongst all interviewers, I believe. In his review of this book he states, "Many will read this book for the close, elegant reasoning, the astonishing erudition, or the mordant analysis. I confess I read it for the prose."I HEARTILY ENDORSE THIS BOOK!

Assiduous readers of previous reviews will already have a sense of the book’s challenges. First, this is a collection of what the 18thc would have called ‘fugitive’ pieces. It is not a set of coordinated essays on a single subject. There is everything here from essays to book reviews to a letter to the editor. The core problem is that a substantial part of the book (a third?) is devoted to arguments based on higher mathematics. For the majority of readers this material will be utterly unintelligible. The good news is that the author is David Berlinski. His cause is good (undercutting the authority of ‘believe the science’ arguments, especially arguments in regard to neo-Darwinism). He is the leading undresser of the scientific emperors.He is also cognizant of the best that is thought and known in philosophy and in literary history and he writes like an angel, a very sarcastic angel. Peter Robinson, the wonderful host of Uncommon Knowledge (who has interviewed DB) says that he read and enjoyed this book for its prose (presumably because he, like many of us, does not understand the math). Here is a sample:“As the physicist sees things, Newtonian mechanics is a branch of physics, and limited thus to the one (and only) physical world. The physicist is an intellectual Puritan in the narrowness of his affections. Yet there are as many mathematical worlds as there are consistent mathematical theories. The mathematician is an intellectual Mormon in the voluptuousness of his attachments and is forever appearing in public accompanied by ten lavishly complaining wives. Strangely enough, mathematics and physics are mutually absorbed; that these two separate disciplines should have anything to do with one another is a very great mystery (p. 241).”This is as profoundly important as it is difficult for the layman to understand, analyze and debate. Bottom line: I loved the book; I understood comparatively little of it.

David Berlinski challenges Darwin's "theory" with 21st Century scientific research and argumentation which makes the reader scoff when they hear the slogan "I believe in Science." Which Science, the 19th Century challenge that had no grasp of quantum physics or the 21st Science while making progress is less omnipotent? This salient point proves that "Science" per se is no monolith of knowledge which has a unified theory of every field of science. Well worth the read and his humor sardonic as it is will leave you smiling like a quantum cat.

Can't say I like or dislike the book. I will say it is well written but after reading a few chapters, as the author moved deeper into theoretical mathematics, I found myself beyond my understanding. Though through high school I had excelled in Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Physics my education ended there. So, that leaves me unable to honestly evaluate the contents. The book, I think, was written for his peers rather than the general public.I give the book 5 stars based on my knowledge of Dr. Berlinski, his standing in his fields, and reputation. I can't imagine his publishing anything that would not meet that standard.

One reviewer wrote, “if David Berlinski wrote a phone book I would read it.”Maybe this is that phone book.I’ve immensely enjoyed several previous books by the author so was expecting something cogent, witty, and focused.Not so. Rambling, disconnected vignettes which lead to who knows where (much of the time)? Lots of heavy-duty math which leaves the cookies on the top shelf where a very few can reach them. (I’m not a mathematician by training but have a degree in electrical engineering with 40+ years as a SW developer plus a doctorate in theology but still couldn’t reach most of the cookies.)Honestly, I felt betrayed and misled by the fawning praise for this book. Spent most of the read slogging along hoping things would improve, only to be disappointed as another chapter came and went.As others have remarked, the overall presentation is disjointed and doesn’t seem to lead to a coherent destination giving an overall rambling feeling to the reading experience.

As always David Berlinski is articulate, succinct, erudite, humorous along with a cutting irony