PANTHEON
ExploreBuild My Library
© 2026 Pantheon — an atlas of the ideas that shaped how we think.
person1942–

David Berlinski

Disciplines:
philosophy
mathematics
writing
science/science critique

Summary

American-French mathematician and author — Discovery Institute fellow — known for skeptical critiques of Darwinism, atheism, and the cultural pretensions of science — author of The Devil's Delusion and One, Two, Three: Absolutely Elementary Mathematics.

Core Contribution

Creates the most stylistically sophisticated secular critique of scientific triumphalism — Berlinski's argument (that secular scientific culture has not solved the deep problems of human existence and that scientists are not better moral guides than priests) is the most entertaining and least easily dismissed of its genre.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • Writes about mathematics for general audiences with a literary style that other mathematicians find excessive and general readers find seductive — his writing is explicitly a performance as well as an argument
  • Is personally secular (Jewish by background, non-believing) while arguing for the cultural and intellectual necessity of religion — treats the critique of materialist science as separable from personal faith

Notable Works & Achievements

The Devil's Delusion

Newton's Gift

A Tour of the Calculus

One, Two, Three

Historical Influences

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Ludwig Wittgenstein

Intellectual Lineage

New York Princeton Paris Discovery Institute

Contemporaries & Peers

Richard Dawkins Michael Behe

Minds Influenced

Anti-Darwinism arguments

Intellectual Posterity

The Devil's Delusion Berlinski as mathematical contrarian

Discussing

David Berlinski

Ask anything about David Berlinski — their ideas, influences, contradictions, legacy.

Sign in to start a conversation.