Uncommon Knowledge with David Berlinski on “The Deniable Darwin”

welcome to

uncommon

knowledge

I'm Peter Robinson, we're filming today in Italy in the town of Fiesole, in the hills just above Florence, an academic and author David Berlinski is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture and a contributing editor of inference international journal of science dr. Velinski has a PhD in philosophy from Princeton, did postdoctoral work in molecular biology at Columbia, and has taught philosophy, mathematics, and English at institutions such as Stanford Rutgers and the City University of New York and Apache University. His books include The Devil's Delirium, atheism and its scientific pretensions and the

deniable

darwin

and other essays

david

Berlinski welcome thank you very much I have to talk just for a moment about David Cole you won the Yale computer scientist who last spring published an essay in The Claremont Review of Books called give up Darwin Quote There is no reason to doubt that Darwin successfully explained the small adjustments by which an organism adapts to local circumstances, changes in fur density, wing style or beak shape , but there are many reasons to doubt whether it can explain the big picture and not the fine details. tuning of species but the emergence of new ones the origin of species is exactly what Darwin cannot explain close quote now David Gallinger is a leading computer scientist and computing is at the center of everything good about the new economy and the current academy. the technocratic becomes rational, there is no need to ask fundamental questions and here is Girl Earner going over to the eccentric side and why she does this in part by reading the work of David Berlinski, which David Gallant nner in his essay referred to as an essential quote. explain to me some of your arguments from the

deniable

darwin

taking into account that he has a lot to answer for a lot to answer, look since Darwin published in 1859, everyone has practically recognized what the problem is at the end of the inference we have something that we cannot describe properly a living system, how are we going to place our trust in a process of evolution if we can characterize what it achieves?

It is an essential problem not only for a dynamic theory of life but for any theory of life learning. For example, if you can't characterize what an organism has learned, you don't know how to evaluate a learning theory in the same way. What we do know about living systems is a degree of complexity that is almost unfathomable. Its complexity wrapped in complexity. complexity is forming and an endless panorama of labyrinths and we simply have no way to reconcile the kind of primitive mechanism that we see in a local variation, random mutation and what Darwin correctly described, went to something, there is a kind of, they had a local theory of change, but he didn't have anything like a global theory and this is what we're missing, okay, let me ask you if I may, David.

I have taken notes. I read the assignment that teacher is the deniable Darwin and just took notes. a layman you are a scientist I am going to ask you to make me understand the fossil record this is you writing on Darwin's deniable quote if life progressed through an accumulation of small changes as Darwin suggests the fossil record should reflect these small organisms a little more complicated , a little more complicated than that and in a gentle progression towards David Berlinski and I say or at least to the dinosaurs, but before the Canberra era, a brief 600 million years ago, very little is recorded in the fossil record and Then during this time... called the Cambrian explosion, an astonishing number of biological structures come into creation at once.

The Cambrian era, as I remember, lasted 70 million years. Some uncertainty about when it might be over could be low, but the argument is that in geological time, Lincoln, Illinois, in the blink of an eye and that's not just a problem for Darwin which is in itself fatal. , it's not fatal, there are a variety of explanations in the literature, I mean, some paleontologists argue that the record is there, it's just not very evident, others argue that there was large-scale radiation and many of the details are now lost , but there is no reason to doubt that that occurred, but the essential part is that you have a theory that makes at least a qualitative prediction that change in biology is continuous.

It is not radical, it is not discontinuous, it does not jump and if you look at the historical record it seems to jump everywhere, especially in the Cambrian. Now if there are explanations as to whether that can be reconciled, the historical record is an open question, but for God's sake. let's start with the obvious there is something wrong with the theory it makes a qualitative prediction on the one hand and the facts are recalcitrant on the other maybe you can reconcile the two I don't have an opinion I'm not a paleontologist but the least we should do is say clearly look something is not right something is not right and it's not just the Cambrian explosion look at us sitting in the room doing something that no other organism can do chatting among ourselves now what is what is the explanation of a whole set of human powers and capabilities language, including the usual Darwinian explanation, the usual explanation of look, is tremendously useful, right, tremendous, right, okay, but so useful, why is it so isolated that no other organism can speak?

Try talking to the dog. Look. As far as it takes you, they don't have anything to say, not even cats, maybe that's incorrect. They don't mean yes. They don't deign to talk to us. Yes, but that's a typical example. We have a property that is absolutely evident. The power to assimilate a natural language. No other organism. has that power we don't know why we are the only species so gifted so it's part of your I want to go back to the deniable Darwin in a moment but it's part of your argument I'm not even sure it's both an argument and an irritation, it's probably better a lack of humility within the field, you say, look, this is what you would expect from Darwin, continuous change, here is the fossil record, they don't match, maybe there are explanations, but For the love of God, have the humility to say that There is a problem and the field does not say that.

Well, I should probably be the last person on earth offering the advice of humility to my academic colleagues, but I'll do it anyway, yeah. It would be a good start, listen, why don't we go back to 1859 and say here's a theory and it has certain kinds of properties and then jump up to today and say look, the theory has a lot of interesting things, the fidelity to the facts right? It doesn't seem to be among them, it's an interesting theory, it's not a grouse flaw in a theory that isn't faithful to the facts, but it's also not a good sign that includes all the discussions about gaps in the fossil record, you know when It's about species.

There are not many of them, they form a continuous progression in upper waters, there are large groups that form continuous progressions, but there are very few species on the ground, as Gould recognized, even Jay Gould recognized it, you cannot simply say that the theory is correct and his unfaithfulness to the facts is of absolutely no interest it is very interesting we do not have a continuous record maybe there is a good reason maybe there is a good reason but maybe it is not right sometimes I think there is a need to adapt the Burchill bertolt brecht we have a government legislating a new Palestinian Authority change the facts change the facts so here's like going back to Dharman's deniable quote according to you David the general issue is one of size and space and the way you can find something small leaves out something very great this is the mathematics of evolution, can you explain that to me?

You cite an example from Richard Dawkins, who is the prologue, I think, and Dawkins says that monkeys write on typewriters, sooner or later they will write the sentence and he chooses. a phrase from Shakespeare's church I look like a weasel and then you write I look like a weasel is a six-word phrase containing 28 letters in English including the spaces occupied by an isolated dot in a space of ten billion million million million million millions of possibilities Any definition of natural selection must clearly comply with what I have called a rule against delayed success. Okay, so this gets to the mathematics of the random variation that natural selection acts on.

Are there enough variations? Do we have time for it? Are there enough forms of life? mutating is there time? Has there been any time since the Big Bang? I guess I'm clumsy here, but help me think about the math. Everyone is failing. The mathematics is not very complicated. I assure you that it is the implications that are rababtive. Take any combinatorial chain. Look at proteins that consist of 20 amino acids, and you can mix or permute them in many different ways and the enormous amount of them grows at an amazing speed with an amazing speed if you have an amino acid chain that is 250 amino acids long that means you have 20 high at 250 as power as your total space of possibilities now finding something in this space is simply impossible you don't have the time you don't have the resources the space is too overwhelming what you can't do in Darwinian The theory is: I know what I'm looking for.

Turns out it's a needle. This is a haystack. I know what a needle looks like. I can go get her, yes you can, no problem with that, but don't win. evolution is blind to the future all success is local at a particular moment in a particular space and time if so how can any complicated protein be found now? I'm not suggesting for a minute that the problem is negatively overwhelming, but it is a problem exactly like the Cambrian explosion is a problem this is a problem - it's called a combinatorial explosion it's called a combinatorial explosion because that's how I coined it many years ago space becomes huge but exactly the same thing that is true in a natural language if you take oh I don't I know a high school graduate is supposed to know something like 20 thousand words that's right maybe half of that means no I know her.

You and I know many more of course, thank you dear and take a simple prayer. John brought the book back. house and you consider all the different ways with different nouns and verbs that could fit into that and all the different ways they could be permuted how did you find that sentence? It's much worse than finding a needle in a haystack, you found something because you knew what you were looking for and you knew what you were looking for because you thought about how that thought translates into a grammatical sentence, knowing them, but you did it, if you did it looking ahead , it's very reasonable to suggest that it's not an argument, but it's reasonable to suggest that life must have some forward-looking ability to build the tremendously complicated structures that we see everywhere, like the human eye, like the kidney.

Well, so well understood Darwin is interesting, but the gap between this very elegant or at least quite simple world we can understand what Darwin is doing, the gap between that and what we actually see and what we have come to understand is that the gap it's mathematics, the Cambrian explosion, etc., should instill a greater sense of wonder at what we don't know, rather than a rather smug self. -Confidence that we have solved the problem. I think the view among evolutionary biologists is not necessarily that we've solved the problem, but rather that we've laid the foundation and everything else is a matter of nailing down the basis of

knowledge

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I think that is quite wrong. I see, I don't think the foundation is well laid, well, design, you quote the 18th century English theologian William Paley, who argued that no one could believe that a clock was assembled at random, much less the entire creation. I am quoting. You, the deniable Darwin, it is simply a fact that this polite, old-fashioned argument is completely convincing. We humans never attribute the existence of a complex artifact to chance. Close quote or, if I may paraphrase, the creation of philosopher William Jefferson Clinton. see a turtle on a fence post, you know it didn't get there on its own, it's probably not okay, so again, why is this dangerous territory?

If it is dangerous. Tears come into really dangerous territory anyway because what you're saying is that life needs a little moving forward. -Look for the ability to be able to find through those extremely complicated proteins that if something is happening there that is not purely random and anyone who sees David Berlinski point us even half a step in that direction will stop if you take another two steps. go back to God, the medieval period and the Inquisition, stop it now, yes, I suppose so, although I look with indifference that those consequences I think are neither here nor there, we should have the confidence to follow a scientific theory wherever it leads and If it takes us to the medieval period, it takes us back to the 13th century, which ultimately takes us to the Inquisition.

I'm prepared as long as I'm among the inquisitors, but other than that, I think these are misguided criticisms. I don't think the chasm is going to burst if we say look, we don't really understand this. I don't think anything bad will happen. Well, let me insist that there is aessay, an essay that recently appeared in National Review, written by a biologist named Rajiv Khan. Who is it? Have you read this? You are familiar with that, so let me try some of this Rajab Khan insurance. I apologize if I mispronounced his name. Evolutionary biology is nothing conservatives should fear because it is one of the greatest achievements of modern Western civilization, one of the science built on the rock of Charles Darwin's ideas is a reflection of the western modernity 'its commitment to truth as a fundamental value close quote charles darwin was a defender of truth and

david

berlinski

is an obscurantist I guess radical borrowing should give you a little pang of doubt about the achievement of Western civilization.

I don't know for sure about Maxwell's electromagnetic field theory. Darwin published at the same time an interesting view, not exclusively his, and Alfred Wallace had the same idea, but Alfred Wallace was very significantly aware of the limitations of those theories. Darwin was not influenced, let's put it this way. I wouldn't call it a crowning achievement of Western civilization because I think the theory is fundamentally flawed, but it certainly had enormous social influence. Everything has changed. way of thinking what is it for Goethe or these are other questions again Rajeev Kahn today many on the left reject the very idea of ​​human nature they claim that society and values ​​can be restructured at will are you talking about the social implications of Darwin so is it He that male and female are categories of the mind rather than nature by rejecting evolution?

That's me, a conservative who gives up the most powerful reply to these statements, men are men and women are women, and if you let Darwin go, you lose your ability to make that statement is an interesting example of a complete non sequitur , but I don't see how a rational critique of Dhawan in any way hinders the desire to defend a concept of human nature, not just a concept of human nature but an essential human nature. There is something essential about the binary divisions in human life between man and woman. It is not accidental, it can be changed and deep down we all know it, but that has nothing to do with Darwin.

How do you reach the opposite conclusion by reading the Origin? of species Darwin himself got rid of any essential idea in biology from a strictly philosophical point of view he is a nominalist there are no species as abstract entities there is a progression of individuals that go back to the past it does not make sense that one can say that this is a species unless you are a group of isolated individuals and their problems with that too because that seems to encompass a species within the folds of set theory, so if you take a look at dogs, they are all dogs, if you think that all dogs form a species, can you tell where species begin and where you can't say any of that at all?

So the idea of ​​reconciling species with a modern point of view and set theory is useless, if they are not sets, what are they if they are dogs? They do not form a set of objects, what are they? either they are nothing what is Darwin's real position or there are some abstract tables dead terminal position because he has no way of defining the notion of species there is nothing essential because everything is mutable it changes all the time and he did not see it himself the book It is called I am the origin of that. It is an irony but consider it from a Darwinian point of view.

An organism changes and if the changes accumulate the entire structure of the structure of the species changes, but it does not make sense to say that it is a species, everything before of it being a species, all after there is another species, there is a primordial dog such that its birth marks the beginning of dogs and everything before it is just wolves, right? no such thing, it's a gradual transition I see, I see well, so you haven't every time I talk to you, David, there is a new idea that more or less raises the top of my head.

I'll have to understand it. Got it, I'll try it, okay, again with you who left me here David, sorry, again with Rajiv Khan, one last excerpt from your recent article, a National Review of Dating, hoping that the energies of the right are not the most fruitful. I dedicated myself to debating. descent with modification and common origin of life you are wasting your time the seeds of tyranny and democracy were sown by the evolutionary pressures that shaped humans for millions of years we must not pass up knowledge and ideas that could help preserve what we We think it's good, beautiful, true, close quote, it would be very difficult to disagree with that, except for the first part of the seeds of something that is like that in evolutionary time.

I don't see many seeds being sown in the fight for life in primordial Africa, certainly not. seeds that have something to do with modern life, that is just one of the contemporary myths that are spread about us being evolutionary. Evolutionary psychologists and sociologists continue to talk about the deep aspects of our nature that were shaped by evolutionary pressures. I think the deepest aspects of my nature. they weren't formed by evolutionary impressions, but that's a separate argument, but the next part of that quote, yes, sure we can judge things by the standards of truth, goodness, and beauty, no one's stopping us, David, recently, in inference , the International Journal of Science that you helped you edit, you published a review of something that someone worked very hard on and it was a clear effort to achieve something good and that object was a book called blueprint and it is a book by the sociologist and doctor from Yale Nicholas Christakis, whose name I remember.

I may be pronouncing it wrong, but I tried my best to get it right. Nicholas Christakis and the name, the name of the book is blueprint and Christakis says we live in a difficult time. Europe is in crisis. More riots are coming. Migratory pressures. Rise of China. Tensions between China and the United States. United States and it is in the air that we are predisposed to violence and disorder due to evolutionary pressures, but let me have Nicholas Christakis produce a book that shows the way we are predisposed to cooperate to form groups to work for good, so as by evolution.

It is more than 500 pages, but the plot is brief and I quoted in blue. Natural selection has shaped our lives as social animals. You should be happy with this harp preparation capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, learning and even our ability to recognize the uniqueness of other individuals. All this about natural selection, each of us carries within us an evolutionary model to make a good society. Close quote and I have to tell you that the tenor of your review is one in which you are simply not impressed why it is good to divide those statements by natural selection you are left with a rather optimistic creed, in general we are disposed to certain worthwhile ends and we have the means to pursue them, yes that is true, sometimes denial is equally true if you look at the 20th century and all its virtues.

What he expresses, for example, cooperation can be used for very nefarious uses. Look, the Nazi Party was a wonderful engine of cooperation. All those Nazis cooperated with each other in the management of the extermination camps. Cooperation is relatively neutral. The gulag could not have been maintained without China's cooperation. could not hold up under Mao in the 60s, 50s and 60s without large scale cooperation this has not risen above the level of bromide something you swallow and hope for some relief from heartburn heartburn is too deep for this guy of heartburn analysis of the 20th century and I'm not talking about indigestion either.

I'm talking about heartburn and we have very little to understand what happened in the 20th century. Look, we're talking about 220 million excess deaths between 1914 and 1945. It's not something that can be alleviated by remembering our powers of cooperation, if anything, there was too much cooperation during those years, a little love, too much cooperation, so these offer little by way of analysis, penetrating analysis of what was sought, for example, that He had a message, although a message and a banality of evil and good and the sources of totalitarianism, in all his books in Rice, he recognized the magnitude of the question that needed answering was why after the relatively optimistic 19th century there was a descent into barbarism. and we do not know the 20th century and Charles Darwin does not help us to answer, it does not help much, by the way, the technique of the argument that in the plane you write this, the argument that is Christakis is an argument and plane, the argument is invariable and comes from the common characteristic of social life to the gene that acts as its presumed cause, but we cannot complete any connection between any particular gene and any phenotypic trait.

It's true, isn't it because of connection? I mean a complete causal connection and it is remote. in time, the moment when we were able to complete a chemical or biochemical connection, you have no idea what happens, I mean, you learn to walk, I learned to walk, you can say there is a gene for walking because we didn't learn it, but that tells you nothing more than that you learned to guide David in your review of a Christie book. Here you summarize your own vision by writing this: If the model of our social behavior circumscribes the terrible societies of the 20th century, it is too broad to be of interest, and if it is determined by the human genome it is too limited to be hopeful, we must look for other sources to our common humanity, which led me to wonder what David would do with a certain document that I find compelling but difficult and that is the speech on the relationship between faith and reason by then Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 at his former University of Regensburg, Germany, and I have no idea.

I'm doing this because we are friends and because I really want to listen. what you have to do with this what you do with this like this and you may have to read a couple of longer passages to set it up the pope poses the problem here is the part of the problem a western thought has reached a point where only The type of certainty resulting from the interaction of mathematical and empirical elements can be considered scientific by its very nature. This method, which is the scientific method, is currently understood in the West by its very nature.

This method excludes the question of whether God does it. makes it seem unscientific or pre-scientific, close quote and you get up from your chair and say, of course, exclude the question of God. God has nothing to do with science or that's not your answer, maybe it should be fine. I think if you look at the grand theories of physics, that's where the richest tradition really lies that has some relevance to the world, as opposed to mathematics, not physics, which explains observed reality. Well, real physics explains the world. Okay, math explains a lot of things, but I think that should be it. should be set aside as a separate case for the moment, but neither the assumptions nor the conclusions of any of the four great physical theories, Newtonian mechanics, Einsteinian relativity, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, make any claims about the existence of God, they simply don't. just leave it out, that's a good or bad thing, but the fact is incontrovertible.

These are not theological documents. Treat them as they are, they are physical theories, but don't argue, as so many people do, that their implicit conclusion is. antitheist, it is not, you cannot draw any conclusion from special relativity that indicates that God does not exist or that things are going well for him, and I even follow you. I think the problem, second part, is the pressure on Europe from the Islamists. world again I am quoting Benedict XVI the deeply religious cultures of the world see the exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason, that is, we can talk about anything but God, as an attack on their deepest convictions, a reason that is deaf to the divine. and that relegates religion to the realm of subcultures that is what you were saying what you were describing this notion of physics as refuting God or in one way or another condescending to the religious who relegate the illegitimate SRI of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures close quote we have a problem we, Westerners, have pushed any notion of religious thought, any sense of the transcendent to the children's table and to other cultures and, in particular, it was Islam that puts pressure on the West Apart from anything else, just look at the population figures. the population of Europe over the next half century will decrease the population of the Islamic world will grow by a few hundred million that is a problem and we cannot talk to them let alone organize some kind of work room we cannot Talk to them because they take religion seriously.

You admit that he has raised a real problem. Admit in the granting of your degree, how would you see the problem? I think that if we are perfectly capable of discussing things with Islam, we are less able to consider a whole category of arguments that we used to consider with considerable interest, that is, the theological argument is correct and theology has more or less disappeared as part ofWestern curricula. the Western habit of thought, but it hasn't completely disappeared, look, why did it just stop there? Revolution because, first, the disappearance has two parts: the enormous success of a secular culture very obviously generates an expectation that its fundamental assumptions must be correct if it produced so much material abundance and such a relative absence of scarcity, and the second Part of it is the great difficulty of considering very abstract arguments about the existence and Providence of God in the world as it is without the apparatus of modern science to support those arguments, that is, we feel a distinct inadequacy to make claims about the real world without having a huge device like a backpack that says, I'll look in the backpack and special relativity tells me that the ontological proof is correct, well, no, I'm not going to tell you that you have to address it. alone and naked and that is something that very few people want to do it is already temporary it is just a fashion the theological arguments are not going to disappear and the fundamental questions they address are not going to disappear nor do you see certain signs of the wind for example the ontological argument and the philosophy that has been in force since the 12th century, in fact, at the end of the 11th century it has not disappeared and the greatest logician of the 20th century, Curt Faja, made it manifest in his own way, seeks to explain that the girdle is insufficient. called it I have never understood it Anselm argued in the 11th and 12th century that God is a greater being than whom no other can be conceived and concluded that therefore he must exist well, why, because if he did not exist, you would conceive something . even greater, that is, a being that exists, well, everyone said, you know, he couldn't be right, oh my God, what was he?

The problem is that it is very difficult to refute, it is devilishly difficult to find a convincing explanation of where he went. wrong and in the 1960s Kurt Girdle solved everything in terms of modal logic. Anyone, I don't think he published in Israel, showed the results of him: Dana Scott, among others, and it has sparked lasting controversy ever since, an indication in a small subfield. That these topics retain an intellectual vitality denied to them by conventional science, does this mean that the argument is correct? I have no idea, you have no idea, but the design argument is also making a comeback, it is also making Europe inconclusively conceded, but it hasn't. disappeared and will not disappear because we are too impressed by the facts to avoid an encounter with any theory that seems to explain them, that is that action, so Newton Einstein Max Planck, the physical theories they propose, do not disappear. find something, you don't get the sense that there's something else trying to push it, but when you talk, you just talked about evolution and you say, wait a minute, what could explain the complexity of life, wait a minute, even grant it.

This means that life proceeds through mutations. It doesn't seem like it can be completely random. He looks like he knows where he wants to go. You feel that right on the other side of the wall there must be something that is intelligent that is there is a rhythm there is something there you don't feel it that in physics you do it and that design argument is look this must mean something what you study what you do know I think then you look at physics enough and the murmur becomes quite insistent why the laws of nature are the way they are why the constants are the parameters set for the values ​​they have these may be bad questions these may be good questions these may be questions unanswered or undecidable but they are questions that are questions and the insistent murmur is heard every time a discipline is pushed to a certain point and with a certain effort of will so they were not Einstein's comments we have some comments in which he mentions God there are certain theories of which he' Approved disapproved because God wouldn't play dice with the universe the old man doesn't roll the dice the old man doesn't roll the dice Delta but he wasn't just being shy he felt that he felt it I don't know that Einstein was Se dedicated to expressing many offenses, he thought succinctly, okay, we shouldn't make his comments about God not playing dice, they were actually a response to his discomfort with quantum theory, but it was also a fundamental attitude towards the universe, because Einstein believed in rationality, the integral capacity of the universe, okay, stop there because now let me take you back to Benedict, you just said the rationality of the universe and Benedict in this speech in Regensburg quotes a medieval Byzantine emperor who is and there is a dialogue between us. have a dialogue between the Byzantine emperor and the Islamic captors of him, he had been captured and Islam was fine ii, it doesn't matter, but he argues that you should not try to convert through violence through conquest because that is an act against reason and irrational.

It is the nature of God that is reasonable and then the Pope and that is in fourteen hundred something or others, as I remember, and this is what Benedict XVI says in two thousand and six is ​​the conviction that acting without reason contradicts nature of god simply a Greek idea something that occurred in Byzantine culture or is always and in print Stickley true and then gives a bit of exegesis modifying the first book of Genesis the first verse of the entire Bible John Gospel John begins the prologue of his gospel with the words at the beginning was the logos and logos of course means reason and word, it is the same idea that Greek Hellenistic thought places at the center of its conception of reason and John pronounced the last word on the biblical concept of God and in his word all the often laborious and tortuous.

The threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis, so in the distinctively Western Judeo-Christian tradition I guess one thing I'm asking is whether that tradition still lives, still informs, should still inform us, there is no necessary contradiction between faith and right when Richard Dawkins, the zoologist, says that Darwin makes it possible to be an intellectually realized atheist. He is talking nonsense. This is not easy for you. We don't like this. You don't like this line of thinking. Should you have answers to all the questions that human beings have asked since time immemorial or is it enough for you to simply dismiss many questions and then you will find rest and tranquility?

I think Dawkins really means the latter: he gives us the freedom to ignore many questions. questions and I suppose that's true, it's true empirically, but the questions returned returned the murmurs that you always hear if you listen closely enough, the interesting question is whether the theologically interesting question is whether rationality is an essential attribute of deity and keep in mind that Islamic tradition says No, no, yes, and that is a profound difference. You only have to talk to a Muslim theologian for five minutes to realize how profound it is. God is not limited by anything, including the powers of reason, and this motivated many medieval Muslim theologians. -Ghazali, for example, couldn't reconcile that view of deity with anything he was committed to by virtue of his training in Greek logic, for example, so he simply stopped talking and stopped writing when his doctor said so. very memorable: God put a lock on his tongue and that is the only way he could reconcile these very different impulses let me finish Benedict and Regensburg.

I'm having a lot of fun just throwing these things away she was watching what you do with them this is the Pope, he's something I've Had this attempt meant his argument painted broadly into a critique of modern reason, the scientific method strictly Empirical from within has nothing to do with turning back the clock to pre-Enlightenment time and rejecting the intuitions of the modern era, as we rejoice in the new possibility science has opened up material wealth we all did it the great success of empirical science in producing new wealth for society true we all rejoice because we also see dangers and must ask ourselves how we can overcome them the enemy of modern life is the end of everything, we will only achieve it if reason and faith can come together in a way new.

Does David Berlinski believe it? In this sense, theology rightly belongs to the broad dialogue of the sciences, precisely as theology as Only in this way will we be able to establish an authentic dialogue between cultures and religions, so urgently needed today, through the investigation of the rationality of faith. Not only are faith and reason not necessarily contradictions, but we must recognize them and somehow celebrate them and somehow make use of them. the way in which the tradition that we have inherited, the Judeo-Christian tradition, sees them linked, well, you have a synthesis between two rubles and a pound, I really don't know what commitment is made when I say or someone else says that I have. faith I have faith in many things I use that elocution, for example I have faith that tomorrow morning the sun will rise or faith that the sun rose yesterday I believe in reason to the extent that I understand what people are talking about when and I believe in logic, let's put it this way I know what a good argument is what a bad argument is what solidity is what validity is beyond that reason seems to have very little meaning to me so a reconciliation between two and ponderable seems to me like The cruelest kisses sold in famine conditions, yes that's what they are, reconciliation is what it is, but it doesn't really mean anything.

One thing I am reasonably sure of is that theology as a discipline is not going to undergo a resurrection anytime soon. No means no, I don't think it's not interesting enough, why should it be like that? There is a tremendous and tremendous swing that ideas undergo and the closest we can come to explaining them is to say that they are shaken by the desire for changes in what we consider. important I mean all those who dismiss theology as a dying science, for example Richard Dawkins, you can be sure that you are not studying it, you only know the guidelines dedicated to an examination of property, it could not be anything, it could not be nothing that occupies an evolutionary biologist and that is true it is nothing that occupies an evolutionary biologist without a dedicated audience the topic will perish and that is what has happened over the last 200 years it still exists in terms of Catholic hermeneutics it exists in terms of different varieties of Catholic religion Jewish or Islamic doctrine, but it is not in the mainstream and it is not going to move into the mainstream and that is simply a fact, we have to accept the latest questions Europe lived here for a couple of decades now below replacement level birth rates economic stagnation relative to the United States relative to China there is certainly uncertainty about the continued role or even long-term existence of historic nation-states and under immense pressure from Africa, it is expected Europe's steadily declining population will double by 2050, within two generations. have doubled and Europe will have begun to empty itself, on the one hand, we have Emanuel Mack, president of France, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, who insists on a completely secular Europe, on the other hand, one last time, Benedict XVI, this convergence of biblical principles.

Greek faith and philosophy, with the later addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remain the basis of what can rightly be called Europe. Close quote: How does Europe survive? Should there be some kind of conscious return to the Judeo-Christian tradition? Secularists are lazy. and France is the way to go, which I certainly try not to think of in terms of two generations in the future because that's too long a period. I can hardly understand what will happen next week because there are so many surprises. I never expected Mac's presidency to be compromised by the Shillito movement, but yellow vest guys, but I didn't expect Merkel to overstay her welcome in 2015 politically handicapped, but she was her and she may have done the right thing. moral, he should do something wrong politi welcome she welcomed millions, about a million immigrants to Germany, welcomed a million, mostly Syrians, I think in Vincente to Germany and was warmly applauded by the opinion correct everywhere and I think that the moral gesture was reasonable considering that Germany is Germany unexpected but reasonable but politically it was a fatal mistake, it did not endanger its power completely and that is why what is about to come out now what often goes unnoticed is that socially the assimilation of a million refugees seems to have happened with relative success, the small crime rate increased here and there, but overall, the anarchy and chaos that was predicted did not occur, the Germans seemed to be very capable to do that kind of thing, what is the role of the nation. -state is that it is still a fraud the fact of the matter is that no one believes in the nation-state either, it really disappeared, it disappeared not in Italy nor in France there are vestiges of patriotism everyone is emotionally you without a little bit of Britain I would include to Britain you would include that the nation-state is an idea and no longer has an overwhelming hold on man's imagination, so Brexit was a waste of time, BrexitIt was a complicated decision in which people simply said they were fed up with the British elites and there is a loss of sovereignty for the EU and they were absolutely right, there was a considerable loss of sovereignty for you and the best proof is that it is very difficult to get out of the EU, but if that is an exaltation of British identity, I really doubt it.

Contemporary Britain is emotionally incapable of doing what it did in 1940, which is to join a superb leader in France. Oh, the idea of ​​France is cultural now, it is a question of taste, savoir faire, but it is not a question of Mendes's sense of French identity or the Italian one or the five years fifty years ago when De Gaulle spoke of letting go. I laughed because people in one way or another had some idea of ​​what I meant, today they haven't gone away in half a century. century simply even that is not in the French sense of oneself you can say in eclis today you can't to say no can be said without irony so are you an optimist or a pessimist or just not, you are just perfect content leading a little day taking it one day at a time in Paris I think it is foolish to be an optimist or a pessimist there are many reasons for both to be an optimist the notable improvement in the physical circumstances of life throughout Europe United States Japan even China the burgeoning middle class probably also the Soviet Union to some extent in Africa to some extent Latin America is a case apart all of these are good reasons for optimism the decline of poverty improving health very solid reasons for optimism but there are also reasons for pessimism chief among them is simply looking back at the 20th century and seeing what can happen David last two questions April 15 Notre Cathedral Dame consumed in flames that night his daughter Claire an excellent writer in her own right by the way his daughter Claire puts up this post my father is safe but he has been evacuated so he is sleeping in my bed it's been 20 years he said look I've been looking at Notre Dame that building is completely part of my life and then it fell asleep the French have announced an international competition to redesign the roof and spire of Notre Dame.

The French Prime Minister, Philippe, the competition will grant the budget for the building, will aspire to adapt to the techniques and challenges of our time, do not allow it. I was the kassay, what God took, respect, what do you expect from yourself? We will be looking at some architectural monstrosity for the next 20 years, I certainly mean that modern architecture is a spasm of ugliness almost everywhere you look and the incompetence of these people is surpassed only by their vanity. We all know that every time a modern building is built, everyone wants to spit on it and if they lose the urge to spit on it it is only because they have become as familiar with it as the pyramid in front of the Louvre.

I don't know if you have seen any of the proposals for the roof. Of Notre Dom, an enterprising architect suggested a pool, an Olympic-sized pool atop an 800-year-old religious structure, gives you an idea of ​​what they have in mind. At that point, you are not optimistic, your parents fled Europe. United States, you return. I checked the population statistics. France has a population of approximately half a million Jews and a population of between five and six million Muslims. Do you feel completely safe? So no problem, personally, yeah, you know, I've been dating a Muslim woman for 20 years unprotected.

I have a snack right here, so are you telling me to calm down on this notion? I've been trying to say that Europe is under pressure, okay, and one thing we often read in the United States is that the Jewish populations in France in particular are under pressure, there are places where you don't feel safe on the street. , you don't feel safe on the street, so you nurses, yeah, I mean, look, there are neighborhoods with higher crime and neighborhoods with lower crime, I can tell you that. As far as I'm concerned, as far as Claire is concerned, we don't feel pressured by anti-Semitism, although we know perfectly well where anti-Semitism comes from.

I mean, there is a lot of Islamic anti-Semitism, but it is fragile it is very thin it is nothing like historical anti-Semitism it is the narcissism of small differences because anyone who knows the Muslim community, especially the Muslim family, knows that they are mirror images of the Jewish community, they really are very close one last passage, this is the last question last passage of your essay the deniable Darwin and you are discussing the second law this is this was fascinating I have not seen this anywhere else in the writings on the probe of Darwin for or against the second law of thermodynamics which of course holds true that anyone in any system entropy will tend to increase never decrease entropy means disorder only correct disorder so this is what you write enough life life seems to offer At least a temporary rebuke to the second law of thermodynamics if the complexity of living creatures is increasing the entropy around them is decreasing, I thought to myself, I'd never thought of that as a definition of life, but of course , we inhale air, we consume food and look, we are ordered creatures, whatever the universe as a whole is doing, and I'm old enough to have been taught that the universe is ticking like a clock biologically things have gone wrong. bad to better how then do you continue?

God said that the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures and that birds fly over the earth in the open firmament of heaven, that is how it is and who, based on experience, would be willing to disagree close quote now David, has It's been a long time since you and I addressed this question, but do you still pretend to be an agnostic day and night? going to you were cutting off the lice in that look, there is a crucial difference that makes a man men says I believe that God does not exist like Dawkins or Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens that is a statement that is making a commitment to a certain kind of crib system .

I think that just as I believe that there is no natural number between four and five, I think I can show that very easily a man who says that I do not believe that God exists has nothing to do with the game, he is simply saying that among his beliefs there is no are something that can be expressed as God exists, it does not mean that you believe otherwise, it means that you have not reached that state of balance in which you can say that God exists, I believe that God exists, you are withdrawing your belief and that is something that is It is inarguable that you cannot argue against a man who simply says I don't believe it, that doesn't mean he needs persuasion or that he needs proof that in the economy of his belief system you won't find a particular belief, I think.

Before crossing the threshold of theological commitment, one has to be armed in a certain way. Pascal very memorably said that every human being has a hole in his heart that is in the shape of God. Well, maybe, but in some men the hole is much smaller than in others. I'm not saying this is a good or bad thing, but I am aware of the smallness of the diameter of the hole I possess and there is simply nothing I want to change about it, this is how things are, you know David Berlinski, author of many works, including the deniable Darwin and other essays, and editor of Inference International Journal of Science.

Thank you, it's a pleasure, thank you for inviting me to rare insights from the Hoover Institution and Fox Nation. I'm Peter Robinson.