The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions

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Militant atheism is on the rise. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens have dominated bestseller lists with books denigrating religious belief as dangerous foolishness. And these authors are merely the leading edge of a far larger movement–one that now includes much of the scientific community.

“The attack on traditional religious thought,” writes David Berlinski in The Devil’s Delusion, “marks the consolidation in our time of science as the single system of belief in which rational men and women might place their faith, and if not their faith, then certainly their devotion.”

A secular Jew, Berlinski nonetheless delivers a biting defense of religious thought. An acclaimed author who has spent his career writing about mathematics and the sciences, he turns the scientific community’s cherished skepticism back on itself, daring to ask and answer some rather embarrassing questions:

Has anyone provided a 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 the 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 in 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 twentieth century been a force for good?
Not even close to being close.

Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy of thought and opinion within the sciences?
Close enough.

Does anything in the sciences or in their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational?
Not even ballpark.

Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt?
Dead on.

Berlinski does not dismiss the achievements of western science. The great physical theories, he observes, are among the treasures of the human race. But they do nothing to answer the questions that religion asks, and they fail to offer a coherent description of the cosmos or the methods by which it might be investigated.

This brilliant, incisive, and funny book explores the limits of science and the pretensions of those who insist it can be–indeed must be–the ultimate touchstone for understanding our world and ourselves.

Customer Reviews: Read 62 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

An Agnostic Weighs In April 3, 2008
356 out of 416 found this review helpful

Any book by David Berlinski is bound to be fun. He is simply one of the most erudite writers in popular science and mathematics today. Those who particularly like seeing sacred cows treated with a hint of sarcasm and irreverance will enjoy his writing on almost any subject, but this book, attacking the "new atheism" as it does, is especially delightful if for no other reason than for how pompous writers like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchins are in their approach to this subject.

In brief, Berlinski's argument boils down to three main points: there is nothing in science proper that undermines religion (a point that used to be widely recognized and even extolled by writers like SJ Gould), most of the new atheists badly misunderstand even the most rudimentary arguments of theology and are not logically consistent, and finally that much of science has become rather dogmatic, like a new religion. I think Berlinski does an excellent job addressing all three of these points, the first of which should be more or less self evident. Claims, for example, that one "should" only believe in physical or visible evidence are not, in and of themselves, empirical claims. Indeed, I have friends who resolutely insist that materialism is "all there is" while remaining blissfully unaware of the fact that such a statement could not arise from strictly empirical observation.

Regarding the new atheist approach to Aquinas, Berlinski correctly notes that the critics of St. Thomas really do not understand his arguments. Take for example the famous cosmological argument of Thomas Aquinas. In its simplest form, this argument takes the form of a syllogism. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe began at some point. Therefore the universe has a cause. Agnostic that he is, Berlinski correctly notes that this is not actually an argument for God. It is an argument that the universe began to exist, meaning it required a cause. Aquinas, of course, argued this cause was "God" and very specifically the God of the New Testament and Catholic Church. But one need not arrive at this conclusion. It is possible that the universe simply goes on forever. One event causes another and so on back to infinity. (This was the position of David Hume and it has been popular among the atheist set ever since.) Still, Berlinski askes, if we saw a row of dominoes falling, "would we, without pause say that no first domino set the other dominoes toppling. Really?"[p. 69] Of course not. We fall back upon such reasoning only when discussing God. But of course Hume's argument has been rendered pointless by the fact that 20th century cosmology did in fact discover the universe had a beginning, and much of cosmology since then has been an effort to try to explain away the obvious implications of this. (One should also consult on this matter God and the Astronomers by another thoughtful agnostic, Robert Jastrow.) Scientists too, it seems, for all their vaunted objectivity, often find their research agendas driven by their theological concerns.

But how does a "scientist" who also publicly promotes atheism respond to Aquinas and the rather stunning vindication of his argument by 20th century science. Well, Dawkins for one simply asserts that Aquinas failed to consider the possibility that God was subject to infinite regress. Amazing. As one reviewer put it, to call this argument sophomoric is an insult to sophomores, though he did not specify whether he was refering to high school or college sophomores. Aquinas did not "assume" God was not subject to infinite regress. It was the conclusion of his argument that infinite regress was not possible and Dawkins, should he want to refute such an argument, needs to address it directly, which of course he does not.

And so it goes. Berlinski examines one argument for atheism after another and finds each wanting. The authors of these arguments are logically inconsistent. They appeal to multiple universes and diminsions, a weak anthropic principle, physical laws that change from place to place coupled with as yet undiscovered universal laws, and then accuse theists of violating the law of parsimony, Occam's Razor. They publicly stand by Darwin, especially on origin of life issues (about which Darwin had little to say) while privately expressing their doubts about the explanatory value of his theory in many respects. Perhaps the highlight of the book for me was Berlinski's decision to quote the prominent biologist Shi V. Liu who noted that Darwinism "misled science into a dead end" but "we may still appreciate the role of Darwin in helping scientists .. in fighting against the creationists."[p.197] Indeed. Any theory is better than an alternative that might imply God or some other non material cause.

But what would motivate a supposed scientist to make such outlandish claims? And it is here that Berlinski is at his dead level best. For some scientists, and many more non-scientist, science has itself become a religion. And it is a religion with a very jealous God, who can have no other Gods before Him. Like other religions, of course, this one has much to offer its followers, both in material benefits and spiritual solace. But all good agnostics still recognize it for what it is, the zeal of its adherents notwithstanding.

5 out of 5 stars

The Devil's Been Debunked !!! April 4, 2008
150 out of 192 found this review helpful

This book is so well written that superlatives seem inadequate. Berlinsky begins by stating that he is not religious and has no particular religious axe to grind. He is a mathematician and scientist. Yet he skewers science in general, and Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and Harris in particular with well-reasoned argument, simple yet cogent analysis, and more humor than I would have thought possible for this subject.

Berlinksi makes it clear that he in no way means to disparage or belittle Science. He is only trying to show how Science has been twisted by The Four Horsemen in an attempt to prove an anti-religious point of view, and how that twisting promises so much and delivers so little.

I have read Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris (I could not force myself through Dennett's doorstop of a book), and I thoroughly enjoyed each one as I read it. Yet, reading David Berlinski's book made me honestly question what I found so thought-provoking or convincing about any of them.

This book is well worth reading if for no other reason than raising some unexpectely challenging questions, and providing you with some innovative and fascinating insights into ideas you might not have considered. I really liked this book !!!

1 out of 5 stars

Delusions and Deceptions April 12, 2008
124 out of 209 found this review helpful

This book joins the fray in the ubiquitous use of a particular argument in defense of religion. It goes something like this: While doctrinal religion may be outmoded, science is every bit as unable to disprove the existence of a spiritual realm as it is unable to tell us absolutely everything about the universe.

In The Devil's Delusion: Athiesm and Its Scientific Pretensions, Berlinski's sole strategy consists of repeatedly setting up straw men and then taking target practice on them. He begins with the title of his book, which paints all atheists into the same corner, ignoring the vast majority of us who don't require science to prove the unprovable in order to justify our failure to choose from a smorgasbord of puerile fairy tales within which to immerse our identities.

Berlinksi starts by demeaning all efforts at progress: "Like democracy or justice, science is a word exhausted by its examples." This, of course, leads to the conclusion that we should consider an immediate return to tyrannical monarchy (which undoubtedly had its advantages and none of the unfortunate failings of systems which strive to achieve better results). "Since the great scientific revolution...we have been vouchsafed four powerful and profound scientific theories--Newtonian mechanics, James Clerk Maxwell's theory of the electromagnetic field, special and general relativity, and quantum mechanics. These are isolated miracles, great mountain peaks surrounded by a range of low, furry foothills." It appears that Berlinski means to disparage those low, furry foothills, and to hold them up as proof that science isn't nearly as cool as geeky scientists think it is. He deems it irrelevant that those four powerful and profound "miracles" were built upon the low, furry foothills that came before them, and that new, powerful and profound "miracles" will likely be built upon today's low, furry foothills--all of them increasing our knowledge in incremental but important ways.

"These splendid artifacts of the human imagination have made the world more mysterious than it ever was. We know now better than we did what we do not know and have not grasped. We do not know how the universe began. We do not know why it is here...We cannot reconcile our understanding of the human mind with any trivial doctrine about the manner in which the brain functions. Beyond the trivial we have no other doctrines. We can say nothing of interest about the human soul."

Berlinski's attempt at patronization would be offensive it it weren't so embarrassingly transparent. He gives compulsory praise to the accomplishments of "the human imagination," careful to couch the language in ethereal tones, so as to appropriate them into his mystical worldview, while writing them off as artifacts. "We cannot reconcile our understanding of the human mind with any trivial doctrine about the manner in which the brain functions," careful to portray science as the same sort of doctrinal enterprise that prevents Catholics from eating meat (except for fish) on Fridays...during Lent, (or maybe the kind that leads some Pilipino Christians to have themselves crucified each year on Good Friday). These are the first signs that rhetoric is the only weapon in his arsenal. He can bring no evidence to the table, but he can talk in circles.

"On these and many other points as well, the great scientific theories have lapsed. The more sophisticated the theories, the more inadequate they are. This is a reason to cherish them. They have enlarged and not diminished our sense of the sublime." Well...the great scientific theories have lapsed only insofar as they have failed to address themselves specifically to Berlinski's questions, all of which are grounded in a perspective that takes the paranormal for granted. "We can say nothing of interest about the human soul," because many of us do not presupposes the existence of a mystical entity called the soul.

Knowing that the accomplishments of science cannot be ignored, he strives to reduce it to a loveable little bugger, working its poor butt off to answer the great mysteries of life while he and his esteemed colleagues watch with compassionate pity, knowing that it'll never get there without some sort of stopgap belief system involving a watchmaker. What Berlinski either doesn't understand or wishes to confuse his audience about is the fact that Science is not trying to answer his questions. Science is trying to answer the next question. Science takes what we know and tries to reach the next plateau. Science takes what we think we know and deliberately tries to disprove it, hoping to either confirm or invalidate its hypotheses before moving on to the next stage. Science is too busy dealing with reality to give a fig about Berlinski's silly questions.

"If science stands opposed to religion, it is not because of anything contained in either the premises or the conclusions of the great scientific theories. They do not mention a word about God." Nor, Mr. Berlinski, do they mention a word about the existence of albino leprechauns in my underwear drawer, but I daresay that science stands tacitly and comfortably opposed to the veracity of that rumor. "They do not treat of any faith beyond the one that they themselves demand. They compel no ritual beyond the usual rituals of academic life, and these involve nothing more than the worship of what is widely worshipped." Again, rhetorical efforts to bring science down to the level of religion--by conflating acceptance of scientific theories with faith; by equating religious rituals with scientific method; by likening respect for empirical evidence with the worship of invisible beings--bespeak either a profound ignorance about the actual work and intentions of science or a deliberate attempt to mislead the masses.

"Confident assertions by scientists that in the privacy of their chambers they have demonstrated that God does not exist have nothing to do with science, and even less to do with God's existence." I challenge the author to find me a single reputable scientist who claims to have proved that God does not exist. He may find a handful, like Richard Dawkins, who go perhaps a bit too far in making the case that the probability of God's existence is very low, (which strikes me as comparably futile to proving that God does exist), but that is a very different proposition from the one Berlinski is attempting to link all atheists to. Besides that, it takes more than a little intellectual dishonesty to pretend that he doesn't understand the conceptual approach that Dawkins and his colleagues have taken. Their work can be read both as a response to and a satirization of the pseudoscientific drivel of Behe, Dembski, and Berlinski--the Intelligent Design crowd.

Berlinski uses W.K. Clifford's injunction that "It is wrong, always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything on insufficient evidence," to illustrate his interpretation of science's position on God. "If God exists," he imagines the atheist to argue, "then His existence is a scientific claim, no different in kind from the claim that there is tungsten to be found in Bermuda. We cannot have one set of standards for tungsten and another for the Deity. If after scouring Bermuda for tungsten we cannot find any of the stuff, then we give up on the claim." While I couldn't agree more that we should have uniform standards for the validation of knowledge, Berlinski's analogy has a fatal flaw. We know of a substance called tungsten. We know of a place called Bermuda. We know nothing of this (or any) Deity. He is conjured out of thin air and cannot be evaluated in any context, using any standard, by any rational person.

"While science has nothing of value to say on the great and aching question of life, death, love, and meaning, the religious traditions of mankind have a good deal to say, and what they do say forms a coherent body of thought." Really? I must admit that I am so dumbfounded by the straight-faced assertion that the religious traditions of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, Scientology, et al form a coherent body of thought, that I have nothing of value to say in response. If, however, you think that science has nothing of value to say on "the great and aching questions," you've not been paying attention to the people who actually do science. Game theory is used to study the motives of people in myriad interactions; Brain mapping and neuroimaging give us a glimpse into the physiological side of human emotions; Economics can help us understand the way we respond to psychological incentives; Evolutionary biology helps us to understand the genetic basis for many of our baser predilections, in the context of human (and pre-human) history. Drugs--legal and illegal, natural and manmade--can chemically trigger, enhance, diminish, and/or abolish the full range of feelings that are often attributed to the existence of a soul. (We can actually watch this happen with the help of high-tech equipment--undoubtedly assisted by more than one of the four powerful and profound miracles.) Any man who has ever experienced profound sadness while moving his bowels, or any woman who has ever broken down in tears immediately after an orgasm, have experienced the depth of our understanding about the neurological basis of our emotions, (thanks to the nerves in his prostate and her clitoris, respectively).

Here's the sad part. Berlinski trots out his academic credentials by explaining "The universe in its largest aspect is the expression of curved space and time. Four fundamental forces hold sway. There are black holes and various infernal singularities. Particles pop out of quantum fields. Elementary particles appear either as bosons or fermions. The fermions are divided into quarks and leptons. Quarks come in six varieties, but are never seen, confined as they are within hadrons by a force that perversely grows weaker at short distances and stronger at distances that are long. There are six leptons in four varieties." This would be impressive if he didn't immediately make himself a martyred apostate of his own mind.

"This is not an ontology that puts one in mind of a longshoreman's view of the world. It is remarkably baroque, and it is promiscuously catholic. For the atheist persuaded that materialism offers him a no-nonsense doctrinal affiliation, materialism in this sense comes to the declaration of a barroom drinker who says, I'll have whatever he's having, no matter who he is or what he is having. What he is having is what he always takes, and that is any concept, mathematical structure, or vagrant idea needed to get on with it."

So why did you waste all that time at Princeton and Columbia, Dr. Berlinski? Shall we assume that you are a recovering barroom drinker?

We know so much more than Berlinski wants to acknowledge. He is so desperate to establish an intellectually coherent context for his own need to believe that he has no choice but to sacrifice knowledge at the altar of faith. His attempt to cast all science as pseudoscience is a dangerously reckless conflation--one that helps explain why more Americans believe in a virgin birth than in the theory of evolution. It makes people more susceptible to deceptions of all kinds and then invites them to participate in the charade with spiritual impunity.

His argument is not designed to defend Christianity and hold it up as the correct belief system. (Even the good doctor realizes that it is impossible to construct such a defense.) His only option is to put forth a case that is ultimately (and desperately) designed to protect Christianity by defending anything which science cannot disprove. Perhaps he justifies this equivocation by telling himself that his book is primarily geared toward the current American conversation about belief. Regardless, he seems not to realize that his argument is ripe for exploitation by extremists of all stripes.

I've spent this much time with Berlinski because, while his argument is not new--in fact it was first made popular in America in the late 1800's by Herbert Spencer, a British critic and contemporary of Charles Darwin--he embodies the most current incarnation of this mentality. It has become effective across the religious spectrum, from the devout evangelical who believes, ironically, that it forms a scientific basis for his belief, to the passive agnostic who does not wish to impose her skepticism upon believers. It says, in its simplest form, "Hey...until you can explain exactly how and why the universe began, what's the harm in letting people believe what they want to believe?" How about genocide, jihad, ethnic bigotry, slavery, oppression, discrimination against homosexuals and women, the spread of AIDS (via the discouragement of contraceptive use), the sexual abuse of children (in cultish Mormon sects, and in the safe haven for closeted homosexuals and pedophiles known as the Catholic priesthood), the manual retardation of schoolchildren achieved by creating confusion about the validity of evolutionary theory? Show me a way to avoid those catastrophic consequences and even I might be willing to let people believe what they want to believe.

The catch-all argument proffered by Intelligent Designists, like Berlinski, offers believers a cafeteria-style selection of defensive plays, all of which are rooted in a perversion of science, philosophy, and epistemology. They cannot be consistently or rationally executed. If a traditional approach to the validation of knowledge is not sufficient, many bad outcomes must be expected. If people are encouraged to search for whatever greater truths most appeal to them, with no regard for the ludicrousness of the source material, the motives of its past or present protagonists, or the consequences of implementing their prescriptions, then one must be willing to sustain the kinds of unpleasantries listed above, all of which can be justified by any number of interpretations of religious texts and sermons.

The current debate about religious belief is ultimately about the value we place on knowledge. Yes, knowledge can be used for good or for bad, but it is inherently neither good nor bad. Knowledge simply is. (Serious epistemological discussions address the question of what, exactly, knowledge is, while detracting nothing from the fact that, for practical purposes, a duck is a duck, or that the [round] earth rotates around the sun.) The best way to encourage and ensure its use for good is to place a high value on it. The best way to promote or sanction its use for bad is to undermine its worth. Berlinski is working to devalue it for his He may have the best of intentions. Others do not.

2 out of 5 stars

The arguments are beside the point... April 5, 2008
85 out of 121 found this review helpful

There are atheists who might be described as anti-theists because they hate, mainly, the implication of belief in God on the character of the believer and the society. Hitchens is one of them.

Then there are atheists who are anti-theists because they are pushing back mainly against empirical claims that are based on traditional religious stories, to the extent these stories are granted a virtual veto on what can be pictured in the sciences and science education (e.g., creationism). Dawkins is one of them.

Then there are atheists who mainly think that theological claims are as philosophically superfluous or at times nonsensical as so many religious stories can be absurd when treated as empirical accounts. Dennett is one of them.

These three categories of atheists emphasize different things and should be treated differently. One could find a very light attempt at doing that, here, on Berlinski's part.

But the MAIN effect I sense in his enterprise is just the recycling of very old arguments about whether or not atheists instead of theists should bear the burden of proof on this or that general issue (existence versus nonexistence of God and Universe, application of Occam's razor, and so on...), and whether atheism has "unclean hands" on account of the modern "religions" and political evil it can accommodate. And I fail to find much clarification on such strangely resilient misunderstandings as what "the emergence [or beginning] of the universe" means and does not mean to philosophers of cosmology as opposed to cosmologists. A convenient misunderstanding I might add!

To me, the reason traditional religious thought is on the defensive today (in the world of intellectual criticism, at least) is not that people like these atheists have directly targeted it (although they have). It is rather the incidental facts (both related to the development of science) that:

1/ much of modern science has been seen to displace theories that were directly influenced by theology (e.g., geocentrism). This naturally teaches that relying explicitly on theological pictures to describe nature scientifically tends to be a bad idea.

2/ Better science and technology has not only diminished the need to refer to divine intervention to explain certain wonders, but it has diminished the need to call on God's intervention for (at least) short-term material security and prosperity.

This does not show that God does not exist, but simply that reference to God has become less relevant in important respects. And it certainly begins to explain why the burden of proof has shifted to traditional religious thought when it intervenes in certain areas of contemporary scientific and (little by little) political discourse. Simply disputing this burden whenever religious thought is rebuked (by Hitchens and others) will probably not reverse this trend, even if it may help reassert the reasonable freedom of believers to keep their beliefs to themselves.

I, for instance, could believe that the Greek Gods are real, but not the Hebrew God. My belief could not be disproven and could be adjusted to challenge the atheists on every point Berlinski mentions. (Of course the followers of Abraham would be the first to disapprove of my belief.) It would be quite another thing, however, to expect scientists to consider my Gods in their theories.

So, perhaps I should sum up the basic point, which is that if you're already very familiar with the underlying philosophical debates that Berlinski really means to address here, and "objective," meaning that you're not merely looking for support or reassurance (as some people from the Discovery Institute might--which makes sense, since they're on the defensive), I doubt that you will find anything new or impressive here--aside from the convenience of having some of the issues catalogued together and revisited from the clever perspective of Mr Berlinski (which has its value).

I will also add this: Mr Berlinski's main reason for being an agnostic seems to me to be his discomfort with adopting the moral nihilism apparently suggested by sentences such as, "The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference." (Dawkins) It is not primarily that the arguments for theism have remained at least as powerful (logically and epistemologically speaking) as those for atheism, which this book might be seen as attempting to suggest. I think this explains why he still "hangs on" to the possibility of God. (As he suggested on CSPAN, his basic problem is that the atheist conclusion is "premature.") I think this is very telling--both of what he is trying to do here (to re-actualize certain arguments which, again, I find no longer compelling enough to shift the burden of proof back to the atheists where it matters) and of the real power (or, rather, lack thereof) of those arguments.

5 out of 5 stars

A brilliant and fun read April 15, 2008
82 out of 108 found this review helpful

I have read several of Berlinski's books, and this is the best and the most fun read. He takes down by several notches some of the better-known and more arrogant atheists--Richard Dawkins, Peter Atkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett (one of the "brights")--with clever barbs and clear reasoning.

One of the one-star reviewers, in an otherwise rather thoughtful review, made this baffling statement: "His only option is to put forth a case that is ultimately (and desperately) designed to protect Christianity by defending anything which science cannot disprove." Berlinski, a self-described "secular Jew," is surely doing no such thing, and he makes this clear in his preface: speaking of religious traditions, he says, "I do not know whether any of this is true. I am certain that the scientific community does not know that it is false."

His book is written as a caution to the over-reach of certain people in the scientific community who have attempted to draw conclusions about religion and God from facts or hypotheses in science. In this he does an admirable job.

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