A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love (Hardcover)

But as chaplain, Dawkins notes that while wasps and caterpillars can do nothing about such amorality, we can. "At the same time as I support Darwinism as a scientist, I am a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to politics and how we should conduct our human affairs." There is no inconsistency here any more than in the physician who studies cancer, but is bent on eliminating it. And as devil's chaplain, Dawkins urges us to use our evolution-given brains, reject the pacifiers of faith in immortality, and rejoice in our short lives because they are all we have. Dawkins, you see, besides being an eminent Darwinian whose books like The Blind Watchmaker have wonderfully well laid out what evolution means, is also possibly the world's most famous atheist. You will find here his views on religious beliefs and creationists (or their newest incarnation as advocates of Intelligent Design), of course, but on "alternative medicine," crystal healing, homeopathy, and so on. Besides the rants, there is good humor and some warm tributes to friendship, especially in his memorials to his friends Douglas Adams and Stephen Jay Gould. The final chapter, "A Prayer for My Daughter," is a letter he wrote to her when she turned ten, to let her know how he thought she should select what to believe. The great question to ask in all disputes: "What kind of evidence is there for that?"

Readers will be reminded of the belligerence of Thomas Henry Huxley, "Darwin's Bulldog," but evolution is only one theme here. Included is his hilarious review of the book by the hoaxer Alan Sokal who submitted a nonsense paper to a postmodern journal and had it accepted. He rages against postmodernism, with its "all views are equal" stance making his scientific view equivalent to a voodoo view. He expresses his doubts about the jury system, and in a wonderful chapter ("Genes Aren't Us") discounts just how important genes are for personality. Another chapter makes us wonder at just how close we are to our ape cousins. Throughout, he is witty, and above all informative on a wide-range of subjects, not just on his refusal to accept what he sees as the diverse delusions of most of the world. Anyone who has admired his previous writings of science popularization will find these personal essays to be very appealing sermons from an accomplished chaplain.

Not that I agree with everything he says. Indeed, that is part of the fun. Dawkins is adamant on some subjects, religion being one of them. A goodly portion of this book is devoted to letting us know exactly how he feels about the "God hypothesis," "liberal agnostics," and the so-called miracles recognized by especially the Catholic Church. The title of Chapter 3.3, "The Great Convergence" (of science and religion), for example, is used ironically. He sees no convergence; in fact, he calls such a notion "a shallow, empty, hollow, spin-doctored sham." (p. 151)

Clearly Dawkins is not a man to mince words. But his insistence on a restrictive definition of "God" as "a hypothetical being who answers prayers; intervenes to save cancer patients...forgives sin," etc., is really the problem. He considers the "religion" attributed to scientists like Einstein, Carl Sagan, Paul Davies and others (and even himself!) to involve a misuse of the term, calling such a definition "flabbily elastic" and not religion as experienced by "the ordinary person in the pew." (p. 147)

But what Dawkins is really railing against is the illegitimacy of believing in the supernatural and science at the same time.

While I think Dawkins makes a good point with this argument, I think it would be better to make a distinction between fundamentalist religion, which has been, and continues to be, the root cause of much of the horror in the world, and the more progressive varieties which recognize the limitations of the barbaric "Bronze-Age God of Battles." See Chapter 3.5 "Time to Stand Up" in which Dawkins rightly condemns the hatreds and violent history of the three middle eastern religions. At the same time I think he needs to realize that it is legitimate to define "God" as God is defined in, for example, the Vedas; that is, as The Ineffable, which has no attributes, about which nothing can be said.

However it is exactly his point that there is no evidence for the God hypothesis and that to partially accept such a notion, or even to be "agnostic" is to depart from a purely scientific viewpoint. In this I think the atheistic Dawkins is mistaken. Absence of proof is not proof of absence, period. And as far as religion, per se, goes, I would add that not only is religion part of human culture (for better or for worse), but is also part of the so-called "extended phenotype" of human beings, and not something that is going to be argued away.

I also have some reservations about his reasons for not debating with creationists. He believes that to debate with them gives them a legitimacy they don't deserve. In Chapter 5.5, he reveals a letter he wrote to Steven Jay Gould expressing such a view. I don't debate creationists either, but my reason is that creationists don't really debate. They have already made up their minds and are not capable of being influenced by evidence. Theirs is purely an exercise in propaganda. Furthermore, as Dawkins discovered himself (in Chapter 2.3 on the Australian film crew that he allowed into his house for an interview), it is often the case that creationists don't play fair.

In Chapter 1.5 "Trial by Jury" Dawkins presents his reservations about "one of the most conspicuously bad good ideas anyone ever had." I understand his demurral, but would like to point out that juries dispense a social justice; that the tribe makes its decisions based on what it perceives as good for the tribe now, not necessarily what's true in an objective or scientific sense.

Interesting enough, Dawkins demonstrates his knowledge of other scientific subjects, including physics, and he does it very well. I was particularly impressed with his explanation of entropy and how it effects the evolutionary process in Chapter 2.2. (See especially page 85.) He also does a fine job of elucidating why Lamarckism cannot work without a "Darwinian underpinning" since there must be a mechanism for selecting between the acquired characteristics that are improvements and those that are not. (p. 90) Good too is his characterization of genes as constituting "a kind of description of the ancestral environments through which those genes have survived." (p. 113)

On his tiff with Gould, Dawkins attempts to make amends by reprinting some semi-gracious and mostly positive reviews of some of Gould's books; however it is obvious that his professional and emotional differences with Gould remain.

One of the most important points that Dawkins reaffirms here is his belief that we humans, because of our unique insight into ourselves and our predicament, "can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators." (p. 11) What Dawkins means is that we do not have to take biology as destiny or to take Darwinism as a template for our morality--a point often missed by his critics.

There is much, much more of interest in this refreshingly personal collection of essays by one of our most original evolutionary thinkers, some of it first rate, and some of it rather ordinary; yet taken in total reveals a lot about Richard Dawkins, scientist, science writer, teacher, and human being that I was pleased to learn.

Incidentally, the title is from Charles Darwin who speculated on how such a personage might regard "the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature." (p. 8)

That "devil's chaplain" here is Richard Dawkins himself who mostly directs his ire toward the stupidities of human beings.

Dawkins' main target is not what I'd call 'traditional theists', but that group of what's usually labelled "fundamentalists" who are trying to suppress science teaching and replace it with their bogus "creation science".

I know plenty of intelligent people who believe in a God. I don't know any that believe in the literal "created in six days" word of the bible or who think a belief in evolution is absolutely antithetical to religious belief.

The majority of denominations - and thus Christians - don't subscribe to the fundamentalist view (don't take my word for it, do a quick search). In fact most explicitly disavow a literal reading of Genesis. So it's entirely wrong for "middle America" to speak of creationism as a "majority" belief.

Dawkins does take a fairly militant stance. Although I share his views, I initially felt he was being a bit hard on those he disagrees with. However when I read of people seeking to have creationism ranked as "science" in schools at the exclusion of real science I think he's right to get stuck into them.

Dawkin's target isn't "middle America" or the majority of believers for whom belief in God and science can coexist. His target is what we call in Australia "the loudmouth ratbag fringe" who want to foist their view on others. And he's got me on side.

Incidentally, his broadside at postmodernism is just as much fun to read as his views on 'creation science'.