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Richard Dawkins a Devil's Chaplain (2003)

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Author of Unweaving the Rainbow and The Ancestor's Tale R I CHARD DAWKI N S A DEVIL'S CHAPLAIN FLECTIONS ON HOPE, LIES, S C I E N cfNt4J D L 0 V E - NEW YORK TIMES BOOK^fcEVIEW A superb writer . Dawkins unashamedly and gloriously delights in science." - NEW REPUBLIC MARINER BOOKS Praise for Richard Dawkins and A DEVIL'S CHAPLAIN "One of the best-known scientists and writers of our time .. Daw- kins unashamedly and gloriously delights in science. If anything is sacred to him it is the truth and the patient road to it... He is a superb writer, and a great advocate for sanity, and an endlessly informative resource." — New Republic "Dawkins ... is a man of firm opinions, which he expresses with clarity and punch." — Scientific American "Outstandingly good . What unifies the essays is also what ani­ mates them: a spirit of educated clarity, of intellectual probity, of truth and courage ... He is a joy to read, not only for the beauty of his prose but for the elegance and power of his arguments." — Literary Review "Science as a source of joy shines through these pages . The lucid- ness of his vision is extraordinary." — Time Out "This collection of essays penned by one of the world's preeminent evolutionary biologists plumbs the author's commitment to scien­ tific truth pursued through solid evidence and reason." — Science News "Dawkins's enthusiasm for the diversity of life on this planet should prove contagious." —Publishers Weekly "A pleasure-inducing voyage into scientific principles . brilliantly presented and celebrated." —Kirkus Reviews "A fierce advocate of empirical science over superstition . Even at his most uncompromising, he evokes a sincere sense of wonder at the physical world." — Library Journal, selected as a Best Sci-Tech Book of the Year T Books by Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene The Extended Phenotype The Blind Watchmaker River Out of Eden Climbing Mount Improbable Unweaving the Rainbow A Devil's Chaplain The Ancestor's Tale A DEVIL'S CHAPLAIN REFLECTIONS ON HOPE, LIES, SCIENCE, AND LOVE Richard Dawkins A Mariner Book Houghton Mifflin Company Boston - New York First Mariner Books edition 2004 Copyright © 2003 by Richard Dawkins All rights reserved For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003. Visit our Web site: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dawkins, Richard, 1941- A devil's chaplain : reflections on hope, lies, science, and love / Richard Dawkins. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-618-33540-4 ISBN 0-618-48539-2 (pbk.) 1. Evolution (Biology) 2. Science—Philosophy. 3. Religion and science. I. Title. QH366.2.D373 2003 500 — dc21 2003050859 Printed in the United States of America QUM 10 98765432 The author is grateful for permission to reprint the following: "What Is True?": published as "Hall of Mirrors" in Forbes ASAP, October 2, 2000. Reprinted by permission of Forbes ASAP, © 2003 Forbes Inc. • "Crystalline Truth and Crystal Balls": published in the Sunday Telegraph. Copyright © Richard Dawkins / Telegraph Group Ltd. 1998. • "Postmodernism Disrobed": reprinted by permission from Nature 394, pp. 141-3 (1998). Copyright © 1998 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. • "Darwin Triumphant": from Man and Beast Revisited, edited by Michael H. Robinson and Lionel Tiger, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Copyright © 1991 by Smithsonian Institution. Used by permission of the publisher. • "The Information Challenge": originally published in December 1998 in the official journal of Australian skeptics, The Skeptic, vol. 18, no. 4. Reprinted by permission. • "Son of Moore's Law": from The Next Fifty Years, edited by J. Brockman, Vintage Books, Random House, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Vintage Books. • "Chinese Junk and Chinese Whispers": published as the foreword to The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore, Oxford University Press, 1999. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. • "Viruses of the Mind": published in Dennett and His Critics: Demystifying Mind, edited by B. Dahlbom, Blackwell, 1993. Reprinted by permission of Blackwell Publishing. • "The Great Convergence": published as "Snake Oil and Holy Water" in Forbes ASAP, October 4, 1999. Reprinted by permission of Forbes ASAP, © 2003 Forbes Inc. • "Rejoicing in Multifarious Nature": reprinted by permission from Nature 276, pp. 121-3 (1978). Copyright © 1978 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. • "Human Chauvinism": reprinted by permission from Evolution 51, no. 3, pp. 1015-20 (1997). • "The Lion Children": published as the foreword to The Lion Children, by Angus, Maisie, and Travers McNeice, Orion Publishing Group, 2001. Reprinted by permission of the Orion Publishing Group Ltd. CONTENTS Introduction to the American Edition 1 1 Science and Sensibility 5 1.1 A Devil's Chaplain 8 1.2 What is True? 14 1.3 Gaps in the Mind 20 1.4 Science, Genetics and Ethics: Memo for Tony Blair 27 1.5 Trial By Jury 38 1.6 Crystalline Truth and Crystal Balls 42 1.7 Postmodernism Disrobed 47 1.8 The Joy of Living Dangerously: Sanderson of Oundle 54 2 Light Will Be Thrown 61 2.1 Light Will Be Thrown 63 2.2 Darwin Triumphant 78 2.3 The 'Information Challenge' 91 2.4 Genes Aren't Us 104 2.5 Son of Moore's Law 107 3 The Infected Mind 117 3.1 Chinese Junk and Chinese Whispers 119 3.2 Viruses of the Mind 128 3.3 The Great Convergence 146 3.4 Dolly and the Cloth Heads 152 3.5 Time to Stand Up 156 4 They Told Me, Heraclitus 163 4.1 Lament for Douglas 165 4.2 Eulogy for Douglas Adams 168 4.3 Eulogy for W. D. Hamilton 171 4.4 Snake Oil 179 5 Even the Ranks of Tuscany 187 5.1 Rejoicing in Multifarious Nature 190 5.2 The Art of the Developable 194 5.3 Hallucigenia, Wiwaxia and Friends 203 5.4 Human Chauvinism and Evolutionary Progress 206 5.5 Unfinished Correspondence with a Darwinian Heavyweight 218 6 There is All Africa and her Prodigies in Us 223 6.1 Ecology of Genes 225 6.2 Out of the Soul of Africa 228 6.3 I Speak of Africa and Golden Joys 231 6.4 Heroes and Ancestors 234 7 A Prayer for My Daughter 241 7.1 Good and Bad Reasons for Believing 242 Endnotes 249 Index 256 vi For Juliet on her Eighteenth Birthday I INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION This book is a personal selection from among all the articles and lec­ tures, tirades and reflections, book reviews and forewords, tributes and eulogies that I have published (or in some cases not published) over 25 years. There are many themes here, some arising out of Darwinism or science in general, some concerned with morality, some with religion, education, justice, mourning, Africa, history of science, some just plain personal - or what the late Carl Sagan might have called love letters to science and rationality. Though I admit to occasional flames of (entirely justified) irritation in my writing, I like to think that the greater part of it is good-humoured, perhaps even humorous. Where there is passion, well, there is much to be passionate about. Where there is anger, I hope it is a controlled anger. Where there is sadness, I hope it never spills over into despair but still looks to the future. But mostly science is, for me, a source of living joy, and I hope it shows in these pages. The book is divided into seven sections, chosen and arranged by the compiler Latha Menon in close collaboration with me. With all the polymathic, literate intelligence you would expect of the executive editor of Encarta Encyclopedia's World English Edition, Latha has proved to be an inspired anthologist. I have written preambles to each of the seven sections, in which I have reflected on the pieces Latha thought worthy of reprinting and the connections among them. Hers was the difficult task, and I am filled with admiration for her simultaneous grasp of vastly more of my writings than are here reproduced, and for the skill with which she achieved a subtler balance of them than I thought they possessed. But as for what she had to choose from, the responsibility is, of course, mine. It is not possible to list all the people who helped with the individual pieces, spread as they are over 25 years. Help with the book itself came from Yan Wong, Christine DeBlase-Ballstadt, Michael Dover, Laura van l Dam, Catherine Bradley, Anthony Cheetham and, of course, Latha Menon herself. My gratitude to Charles Simonyi - so much more than a benefactor - is unabated. And my wife, Lalla Ward, continues to lend her encouragement, her advice and her fine-tuned ear for the music of language. Richard Dawkins A DEVIL'S CHAPLAIN •ill jstii SCIENCE AND SENSIBILITY The first essay in this volume, A Devil's Chaplain (1.1), has not previously been published. The title, borrowed by the book, is explained in the essay itself. The second essay, What is True? (1.2), was my contribution to a symposium of that name, in Forbes ASAP magazine. Scientists tend to take a robust view of truth and are impatient of philosophical equivocation over its reality or importance. It's hard enough coaxing nature to give up her truths, without spectators and hangers-on strewing gratuitous obstacles in our way. My essay argues that we should at least be consistent. Truths about everyday life are just as much - or as little - open to philosophical doubt as scientific truths. Let us shun double standards. At times I fear turning into a double standards bore. It started in child­ hood when my first hero, Doctor Dolittle (he returned irresistibly to mind when I read the Naturalist's Voyage of my adult hero, Charles Darwin), raised my consciousness, to borrow a useful piece of feminist jargon, about our treatment of animals.
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