Endorsements don’t come much better than this. David Gelernter is the Yale computer scientist and polymath who made many headlines recently with an essay, “Giving Up Darwin,” that cited books by Stephen Meyer and David Berlinski as primary influences in his rejecting evolutionary theory. Now Gelernter has read the brand new book by fellow polymath Berlinski, Human Nature. Says Gelernter:
Berlinski is a modern Hannah Arendt, but deeper, more illuminating, and wittier (i.e., smarter). His ability to use science and mathematics to illuminate history is nearly unique. If I were assembling a list of essential modern books for undergraduates at my college or any college, this book [Human Nature] would be number one. Not only would students learn a tremendous lot from this book; many would also love it. Likewise their teachers. Berlinski’s gift to mankind is gratefully received.
If students at Yale read Berlinski, they’ll find much of the favored quasi-evolutionary “Whig” interpretation of history detonated, with its smug assumption that we moderns are better, happier, more peaceful, and wiser than those who came before, and we’re getting better all the time. That would upend just about everything else they imbibe at Yale, to their own benefit.
Photo: David Berlinski, “Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions,” via YouTube/Hoover Institution.