A Devil's Chaplain (Richard Dawkins, 2003)

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ISBN 0-2978-2973-4

Richard Dawkins is a great writer. His prose is accessible, his analogies well-crafted and carefully delimited with caveats, and his writing bereft of the look-how-clever-I-am style of gratuitous erudition which characterises (and greatly compromises) that of Stephen Jay Gould, Simon Conway Morris and, alas, sometimes even Richard Fortey. His best known long works are The Selfish Gene, The Extended Phenotype, etc., which deal with different aspects of evolutionary theory in a systematic fashion. This book is not one of those.

Rather, it is a collection of essays, and the draft of an important letter which was to have been co-signed by Stephen Gould, but was unfortunately never sent owing to the latter's illness and untimely death.

The essays are divided into various broad topics, including evolutionary theory, and also some which might loosely be described as scepticism, a specific variety of which is atheism. I am an atheist myself, although counting a number of the devout among my friends, so Dawkins' essays found in me a receptive reader (though not one who is necessarily interested in taking up the cause). However, the particular essay in this selection entitled Letter to My Daughter has, I think, a wider significance. It explores the reasons why we believe the things we do - whatever they may be - which really ought to give rise to some introspection in all of us. Especially since so many of us, not least all the various 'theists,' hold such manifestly incompatible beliefs. Food for thought, that.

Other 'sceptic' chapters tackle the more orthodox crackpot targets - UFOs and whatnot - and any reader enjoying these chapters will surely also cherish Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World.

The chapters on evolutionary theory are interesting too, though one should read the full-length works if this is a subject of particular interest. These essays are just teasers.

Recommendation: Highly worthwhile reading.

Look and Feel: The edition I read was the original hardback release, which includes a very few B&W photographs and a usable index.

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A Devil's Chaplain (Richard Dawkins, 2003)

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