Darwin's Angel
Encyclopedia
Darwin's Angel is one of many books published in response to Richard Dawkins
' The God Delusion
. It was written by John Cornwell
and subtitled An Angelic Riposte to The God Delusion.
Cornwell runs a "Public Understanding of Science" program at Jesus College, Cambridge
, and has previously written reviews of religious and scientific books, including other works of Dawkins. He stated that he finds The God Delusion harmful in its failure to tackle the problem of extremism, and wrong on many important issues.
of Charles Darwin
and Gregor Mendel
, who is now looking after Richard Dawkins
. He pens a letter to Dawkins in 21 chapters.
in The Times
, and Madeleine Bunting
in The Guardian
, John Polkinghorne
in The Times Literary Supplement
and Peter Stanford
in The Independent
and was named one of the 'Books of the Year' by the Financial Times
.
Anthony Kenny
reviewed the book in The Tablet
noting that both Cornwell and Dawkins fail to observe the prime rule of intellectual debate, that one should attack the opponent's arguments, not his personality. Kenny goes on to say that neither The God Delusion nor Darwin's Angel "provides the reader with sufficient grounds for a reasoned conclusion" about God's existence. A profile of Darwin's Angel in New Scientist
by Amanda Gefter criticised Cornwell for confusing two meanings of "religion" demarcated in The God Delusion
and for holding one religion in higher esteem than any other. She also suggested that both books are part of a modern debate that is suffering from the fact that the two sides do not concentrate on one definition of religion.
Darwin's Angel is listed on the RichardDawkins.net website as one of several "fleas" following The God Delusion.
According to Dawkins, the book contains a number of inaccurate portrayals of what he actually said. Dawkins questions whether these are "honest mistakes or willful mendacity". He suggests six examples where his writing has been quoted out of context or otherwise misrepresented. For example, Cornwell suggests that Dawkins would have been in favour of Social Darwinism
when in A Devil's Chaplain
Dawkins claims to have explicitly condemned such views and says no one supports such ideas any more.
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
' The God Delusion
The God Delusion
The God Delusion is a 2006 bestselling non-fiction book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, professorial fellow of New College, Oxford, and inaugural holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that...
. It was written by John Cornwell
John Cornwell (writer)
John Cornwell is an English journalist and author, and a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. He is best known for various books on the papacy, most notably Hitler's Pope; investigative journalism; memoir; and the public understanding of science and philosophy. More recently he has been concerned...
and subtitled An Angelic Riposte to The God Delusion.
Cornwell runs a "Public Understanding of Science" program at Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...
, and has previously written reviews of religious and scientific books, including other works of Dawkins. He stated that he finds The God Delusion harmful in its failure to tackle the problem of extremism, and wrong on many important issues.
Summary
In this book, Cornwell adopts the persona of the guardian angelGuardian angel
A guardian angel is an angel assigned to protect and guide a particular person or group. Belief in guardian angels can be traced throughout all antiquity...
of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
and Gregor Mendel
Gregor Mendel
Gregor Johann Mendel was an Austrian scientist and Augustinian friar who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the new science of genetics. Mendel demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance...
, who is now looking after Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins
Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...
. He pens a letter to Dawkins in 21 chapters.
- A Summary of your Argument suggests that Dawkins regards all claims about God's existence as "the exclusive province of science and reason".
- Your Sources suggests that the book ignores distinguished scholarship and uses inappropriate sources.
- Imagination suggests that Dawkins takes things too literally.
- Beauty suggests that Dawkins misunderstands the links between beauty, creativity and faith, and suggests he studies George SteinerGeorge SteinerFrancis George Steiner, FBA , is an influential European-born American literary critic, essayist, philosopher, novelist, translator, and educator. He has written extensively about the relationship between language, literature and society, and the impact of the Holocaust...
, William BlakeWilliam BlakeWilliam Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
, T. S. EliotT. S. EliotThomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
and C. S. LewisC. S. LewisClive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
. - What is Religion suggests that religion is not science and that Dawkins should study sociologists of religion such as Émile DurkheimÉmile DurkheimDavid Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...
. - Is God Supernatural? claims that Dawkins' image of God is not what most theists believe in.
- Celestial Teapots suggests that the comparison with Russell's teapotRussell's teapotIn 1958 Russell elaborated on the analogy as a reason for his own atheism:- Analysis :Peter Atkins said that the point of Russell's teapot is that no one can prove a negative, and therefore Occam's razor suggests that the more simple theory should trump the more complex theory...
is misplaced because Cornwell claims there are prima facie, albeit inconclusive, grounds for believing in God. - God's Simplicity claims that Dawkins imagines that God is an object but this is not how theologians think about God.
- Theories of Everything claims that Stephen HawkingStephen HawkingStephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity...
and others now believe a "Theory of EverythingTheory of everythingA theory of everything is a putative theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena, and predicts the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out in principle....
" is impossible due to Gödel's incompleteness theoremsGödel's incompleteness theoremsGödel's incompleteness theorems are two theorems of mathematical logic that establish inherent limitations of all but the most trivial axiomatic systems capable of doing arithmetic. The theorems, proven by Kurt Gödel in 1931, are important both in mathematical logic and in the philosophy of...
. - Dawkins versus Dostoyevsky suggests that Dawkins mistakenly attributes the nihilistic views of Ivan Karamazov to Dostoyevsky. Dawkins responded to this chapter specifically by saying that he was either misunderstood or misquoted.
- Jesus, the Jews and the "Pigs" suggests that Dawkins relies on a single source when he discusses "the moral consideration for others" in Judaism and Christianity being originally intended to apply only to a narrowly defined in-group.
- Dawkins's Utopia claims that Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler all used "science as an ideology combined with militant atheism". He also claims that Stalin's atheism was foundational to his entire ideology, and that as atheism doesn't necessarily lead to violence, nor does religion. Cornwell received some criticism for this section, noting that Hitler not only did not endorse atheism, but carried out measures to stamp it out.
- Fundamentalism suggests that it is important to distinguish between tolerant and violent forms of faith. Cornwell also claims it is a category errorCategory mistakeA category mistake, or category error, is a semantic or ontological error in which "things of one kind are presented as if they belonged to another", or, alternatively, a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property...
to confuse creationism and the "doctrine of creation". - Is Religious Education Child Abuse? questions whether being indoctrinated in a faith is tantamount to child abuse. He goes on to claim the AmishAmishThe Amish , sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches...
are a living testimony to the advantages of frugality and simplicity. - Life After Death suggests that most religious believers hope for an afterlife, In Dawkins' response to the book, he criticized Cornwell for quoting him out of context in this section.
- Religious People Less Clever than Atheists? suggests that scientific eminence does not guarantee sound judgement, and that scientists are prejudiced against religious believers.
- Does our Moral Sense have a Darwinian Origin? claims that there is more to morality than evolution can explain.
- The Darwinian Imperative claims that attempts to explain religion via evolution are simplistic.
- Religion as a Bacillus discusses Dr Gerhard Wagner, and states that describing all religious believers as infected with a virus has deplorable overtones.
- Does God Exist? suggests that Dawkins does not understand the question "why is there something rather than nothing?", which is why he finds it ridiculous. Cornwell goes on to say "the ludicrous anthropomorphic deity that rightly appals" Dawkins is not the God in whom most Christian theologians believe.
- Being Religious suggests that being religious is not a question of factual beliefs but a personal relationship and quest based on prayer and love.
Reviews and comments
The book was praised by Salley VickersSalley Vickers
Salley Vickers is an English novelist whose works include the word-of-mouth bestseller Miss Garnet's Angel, Mr. Golightly's Holiday, The Other Side of You and Where Three Roads Meet, a retelling of the Oedipus myth to Sigmund Freud in the last months of his life...
in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, and Madeleine Bunting
Madeleine Bunting
Madeleine Bunting is an English journalist and writer who is an Associate Editor and columnist on The Guardian.Born in Oswaldkirk, North Yorkshire, Bunting was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where she read History, and won a Knox postgraduate fellowship to study Politics and teach...
in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, John Polkinghorne
John Polkinghorne
John Charlton Polkinghorne KBE FRS is an English theoretical physicist, theologian, writer, and Anglican priest. He was professor of Mathematical physics at the University of Cambridge from 1968 to 1979, when he resigned his chair to study for the priesthood, becoming an ordained Anglican priest...
in The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
and Peter Stanford
Peter Stanford
Peter James Stanford is an English writer, editor, journalist, and presenter. An alumnus of St Anselm's College, Birkenhead, he was the editor of The Catholic Herald, and a regular contributor to the New Statesman....
in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
and was named one of the 'Books of the Year' by the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
.
Anthony Kenny
Anthony Kenny
Sir Anthony John Patrick Kenny FBA is an English philosopher whose interests lie in the philosophy of mind, ancient and scholastic philosophy, the philosophy of Wittgenstein and the philosophy of religion...
reviewed the book in The Tablet
The Tablet
The Tablet is a Catholic international weekly review published in London. Contributors to its pages have included Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Paul VI ....
noting that both Cornwell and Dawkins fail to observe the prime rule of intellectual debate, that one should attack the opponent's arguments, not his personality. Kenny goes on to say that neither The God Delusion nor Darwin's Angel "provides the reader with sufficient grounds for a reasoned conclusion" about God's existence. A profile of Darwin's Angel in New Scientist
New Scientist
New Scientist is a weekly non-peer-reviewed English-language international science magazine, which since 1996 has also run a website, covering recent developments in science and technology for a general audience. Founded in 1956, it is published by Reed Business Information Ltd, a subsidiary of...
by Amanda Gefter criticised Cornwell for confusing two meanings of "religion" demarcated in The God Delusion
The God Delusion
The God Delusion is a 2006 bestselling non-fiction book by British biologist Richard Dawkins, professorial fellow of New College, Oxford, and inaugural holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that...
and for holding one religion in higher esteem than any other. She also suggested that both books are part of a modern debate that is suffering from the fact that the two sides do not concentrate on one definition of religion.
Darwin's Angel is listed on the RichardDawkins.net website as one of several "fleas" following The God Delusion.
According to Dawkins, the book contains a number of inaccurate portrayals of what he actually said. Dawkins questions whether these are "honest mistakes or willful mendacity". He suggests six examples where his writing has been quoted out of context or otherwise misrepresented. For example, Cornwell suggests that Dawkins would have been in favour of Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism is a term commonly used for theories of society that emerged in England and the United States in the 1870s, seeking to apply the principles of Darwinian evolution to sociology and politics...
when in A Devil's Chaplain
A Devil's Chaplain
A Devil's Chaplain, subtitled Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love is a 2003 book of selected essays and other writings by Richard Dawkins. Published five years after his previous book Unweaving the Rainbow, it contains 32 essays covering subjects including pseudoscience, genetic...
Dawkins claims to have explicitly condemned such views and says no one supports such ideas any more.
External links
- Interview with Richard Dawkins and John Cornwell (mp3; 5.8 MB) on BBC Radio 4