Human Nature Human Nature DAVID BER LINSK I Seattle Discovery Institute Press 2019 Description Conventional wisdom holds that the murder rate has plummeted since the Middle Ages; humankind is growing more peaceful and enlightened; man is shortly to be much improved—better genes, better neural circuits, better biochemistry; and we are approaching a technological singularity that well may usher in utopia. Human Nature eviscerates these and other doctrines of a contemporary nihilism masquerading as science. In this wide-ranging work polymath David Berlinski draws upon history, mathematics, logic, and literature to retrain our gaze on an old truth many are eager to forget: there is and will be about the human condition beauty, nobility, and moments of sublime insight, yes, but also ignorance and depravity. Men are not about to become like gods. Copyright Notice Copyright © 2019 by Discovery Institute. All Rights Reserved. Library Cataloging Data Human Nature by David Berlinski 330 pages, 6 x 9 x 0.7 inches & 1.0 lb, 229 x 152 x 17.5 mm. & 0.445 kg Library of Congress Control Number: 2019951015 ISBN: 978-1-936599-71-4 (Paperback), 978-1-936599-73-8 (Kindle), 978-1-936599-72-1 (EPUB) HIS049000 HISTORY / Essays SCI080000 SCIENCE / Essays SCI075000 SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects SCI027000 SCIENCE / Life Sciences / Evolution Publisher Information Discovery Institute Press, 208 Columbia Street, Seattle, WA 98104 Internet: http://www.discoveryinstitutepress.com/ Published in the United States of America on acid-free paper. First Edition, First Printing, November 2019. Dedication Pour les pompiers de Paris Advance Praise Polymath David Berlinski’s appraisal of a transcendent human nature is really a military history, a discourse on physics and mathematics, a re- view of philosophy and linguistics, and a brilliant indictment of scientific groupthink by an unapologetic intellectual dissident. Read it and learn something original and incisive on every page. —Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow, the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, author of The Second World Wars 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 would be number one. Not only would students learn a tremendous lot from this book; many would also love it. Likewise their teachers. Berlin- ski’s gift to mankind is gratefully received. —David Gelernter, Professor of Computer Science, Yale University As the lights of Western civilization go out, it is nevertheless a treat to read these deep reflections on what we can be proud of, and where we went badly astray. Wonderfully unconventional and stimulating, with David Berlinski’s characteristic wit and penetrating insight! —Greg Chaitin, pioneer of algorithmic information theory and metamathematics, and Emeritus Researcher, IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in New York, whose festschrift Unravelling Complexity: The Life and Work of Gregory Chaitin is forthcoming Berlinski combines mastery of classical culture and deep knowledge of mathematics and the natural sciences with sharp, elegant, and insight- ful writing. The man is fearless in pursuing lines of reasoning that are considered taboo by current standards. A wonderful display of common sense and reason at a time of great confusions. —Sergiu Klainerman, Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics, Princeton University These essays represent a reflection on man and modern times as erudite as the finest history, as profound as the most searching philosophy, as beautifully wrought as the loveliest prose, and as shocking and indignant as the best journalism. The work of a magnificent mind. —Peter Robinson, Murdoch Distinguished Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution, host of Uncommon Knowledge Another tour de force by David Berlinski. Few writers indeed, about sci- ence or society, can boast such a thoroughgoing command of the signifi- cant ideas of the past century, the confident mastery of every centrally significant scientific theory. Yet if Berlinski derives obvious joy from the great theories that unify the world, he is never more memorable than when he vividly displays its irreducible particulars, holding the quiddi- ties of place and person more clearly before our imagination than we might even see them ourselves. Indeed, if Berlinski glories in science’s achievements, he is no less dismis- sive of those attempts to see pattern and abstraction born not of vision but of ignorance; and he repeatedly marshals his exceptionally deep his- torical and scientific knowledge (and his inimitable wit) to drive facile theories of man and the world into the shoals. He is a relentless and devastating enemy of all attempts to reduce the tragic, bizarre, glorious world that confronts us to simple answers or easy slogans at the expense of the facts. We will treasure this book. —Stephen McKeown, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, University of Texas at Dallas Contents Introduction � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 11 I. Violence . 17 1� The First World War � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 19 2� The Best of Times� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 41 3� The Cause of War � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 69 II. Reason. .79 4� Relativism—A Fish Story � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 81 5� The Dangerous Discipline � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 95 6� Necessary Nature� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 105 7� Disgusting, No? �� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 119 8� Majestic Ascent: Darwin on Trial � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 123 9� Memories of Ulaanbaatar� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 129 10� Inn Keepers� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 133 III. Fall . 137 11� The Social Set� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 139 12� Godzooks� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 149 IV. Personalities . 165 13� A Flower of Chivalry �� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 167 14� Giuseppe Peano �� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 171 15� Sonja Kovalevsky � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 177 16� A Logician’s Life� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 183 17� Chronicle of a Death Foretold � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 189 V. Language . 191 18� The Recovery of Case� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 193 VI. Place . 227 19� Prague, 1998 �� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 229 20� Old Hose � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 241 21� Vienna, 1981 �� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 253 VII. Interviews. 267 22� A Conversation with Le Figaro � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 269 23� A Conversation with Evolution News � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 277 Endnotes� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 289 Credits �� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 321 Index �� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 323 Introduction have lived within half a city block of Notre Dame for the I last twenty years. I saw the spire from my bedroom window every morning, and on leaving my apartment, I could walk within a few feet of the cathedral walls, dark with grime on the tail-end of the rue du Clôitre, white and sparkling at the head of the street, the stones steam- cleaned and scrubbed. On mild winter days, I liked to wander through the Square Jean XXIII on the east side of the cathedral. The square was always carefully tended, a fountain and a lovely flower-garden at its center. When I needed to get home after the metro had closed, and I was too tired to walk, I told taxi drivers to head for Notre Dame, and even if they had never heard of rue Chanoinesse—my street—they knew how to get there. My father was great friends with Pierre Cochereau, the organist at Notre Dame, and he performed often on the great Cavaillé- Coll organ, water-logged now. My father sometimes let me sit in the or- gan loft during his recitals. From the loft, the organ seemed to boom and echo. In winter, when there were few tourists, I would go into Notre Dame and light a candle for my friend, M. P. Schützenberger. He told me as he was dying that he wished to return as one of the gargoyles, and, perhaps, he had. No building has ever been more a part of my life. I saw the spire topple, slowly at first, and then quickly. The police forced me to evacuate to the other side of the Seine. All of Paris was there. I thought of myself as a Parisian, if not by birth, then, at least, by sentiment. Twenty years is a long time. Thepompiers were in their glory that night, and, when I was allowed to return home as dawn was break- ing, they were still there, red-eyed, exhausted, sooty, grim, and proud. The police, too. The enormous plume of smoke had already drifted to the west and south. Later that day, I saw the front of the cathedral.