A Devil's Chaplain - Richard Dawkins

Douglas Adams aficionado, cricket fan and one of the foremost biologists of our time, Richard Dawkins is amongst the staunchest defenders of reason against what some perceive as a raising flood of irrationality - and he does it in excellent style. 'Devil's Chaplain' is a collection of essays, articles and reviews mostly previously published , but now edited and put together in a well thought-out format. I have recently read a book called 'Blank Slate' (by Steven Pinker) which was also a passionate evolutionary manifesto, and I enjoyed it very much, but it was also tiring, readable but perhaps bit too brash. Dawkins maintains style throughout; he ...

In "A Devil's Chaplain", Dawkins takes no prisoners. Creationists, crystal ball gazers, alternative medicine quacks, true believers and more creationists. Did I mention the creationists? What, at first, seems like a disjointed collection of essays, articles, twiddly bits for the beginning of books and other collected scraps turns out to be a fantastic collection of material covering the various magisteria (to use Gould's famous expression). Science and specifically evolutionary theory take first place. When Dawkins writes on these topics, he is at ...