You’ll never find anyone who writes more clearly about mathematics than John Paulos. Exhibit A is Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1990). [1]
Paulos doesn’t limit his inquiries and writings to pure mathematics, however. Mathematics permeates numerous social issues, and Paulos is happy to jump into the fray whereever that is the case. In this article, [2] he points out how odd it is:
that some of the most ardent opponents of Darwinian evolution – for example, many fundamentalist Christians – are among the most ardent supporters of the free market.
I’ve certainly seen fundamentalists repeatedly and proudly announced that all aspects of an economy “just happen,” without an omniscient and omnipotent Planner. I’ve heard this so often, that I’ve sardonically termed the free market as “The Fourth Person in God.” [3] Paulos has heard these claims too:
[Those who reject biological evolution] would reject the idea that there is or should be central planning in the economy. They would point out that simple economic exchanges which are beneficial to people become entrenched and then gradually modified as they become part of larger systems of exchange, while those that are not beneficial die out. Yet some of these same people refuse to believe natural selection and “blind processes” can lead to biological order arising spontaneously.
Paulos thus raises the question of why those who reject evolution don’t require an “all-powerful, detail-obsessed economic law-giver” to make certain that the vast and complex economies of cities and nations continue to run with the apparent precision with which they appear to run.
Good question.
Check out the many other offerings on the web site of John Paulos. [4]
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