David Berlinski:
Biography

 

David Berlinski was born in New York City and educated at Columbia College and Princeton University.

Berlinski (Ph.D. in mathematics, Princeton University) is a lecturer and essayist. He is the author of Black Mischief (Harcourt Brace) and A Tour of the Calculus (Pantheon). An outspoken critic of Darwinism, he wrote an article, "The Deniable Darwin," that appeared in the June 1996 issue of Commentary and provoked a maelstrom of response both from participants at the Mere Creation Conference and from doctrinaire evolutionists like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett. Berlinski was a longtime friend of the late Marcel Schützenberger, with whom he collaborated on the mathematical critique of Darwinism. Berlinski is a fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.

The author of works on systems analysis, differential topology, theoretical biology, analytic philosophy and the philosophy of mathematics, David Berlinski is the author as well of three novels, all of them dealing with the affairs of the redoubtable Aaron Asherfeld, and a number of shorter works of fiction and non-fiction. He is an accomplished poet.

David Berlinski has taught philosophy, mathematics and English at Stanford, Rutgers, the City University of New York, the University of Washington, the University of Puget Sound, San Jose State University, the University of Santa Clara, the University of San Francisco and San Francisco State University. In addition, he has taught mathematics at the Universite de Paris. He has been a research fellow at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria and the Institute des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES) in France. He has lectured at universities throughout the United States and Europe and at the Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, the IHES, IIASA, the Institute for Advanced Studies in Prague, and most recently at Oxford University.