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Mathematics as a Frontier for Intelligent Design

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Speaking of Berkeley mathematician Edward Frenkel and his argument that mathematics points to an objective reality behind and outside nature, our friend David Berlinski makes much the same point in his wonderful little book One, Two, Three: Absolutely Elementary Mathematics.

Do yourself a favor and go back and read my review of the latter here. Berlinski

returns again and again to the allusiveness of numbers and the operations we perform on them. They allude, they point to, they gesture to something beyond themselves. Just what that might be, of course — of course, if you know anything about David Berlinski — Berlinski won’t say.

I have not yet read Dr. Frenkel’s book but will do so shortly. I was going to say the "frontier" of math is virgin or unexplored territory for ID, but of course these two great math minds have already pointed the way.

Our world is one is one of concealment. Whereas in our everyday experience, ultimate reality is veiled by subjectivity — Plato’s cave, basically — elementary math, not unlike the other sciences, suggests in Berlinski’s words "as nothing else can the glory that is beyond."

In Greek, that is aeon, the world of ideas. In Hebrew it’s olam, whose root means "world," "eternity," or "concealed." Scientism is the project of attempting to convince people that nothing is really veiled from us. What you see is what you get: blunt, dead matter, that’s it.

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture. Klinghoffer is also the author of six books, a former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

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