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spring books and arts we may find a cheap-to-implement accord, (such as homoeopathy, acceptable to the United States, the European crystal and Union and poorer nations, that actually ). Clearly, tackles radiative warming now, within a Dawkins sees his brief few decades. as not only popularizing Noah’s rainbow was a covenant for all science, but demolishing living species, not just humanity. Humanity’s its competitors. emissions now wilfully block the infrared Dawkins’ other major part of that promise. If our nations corrupt bugbear — and the main the rainbow, is it to search out supplies non-divine theme of A of gopher wood and start collecting eukary- Devil’s Chaplain — is the otes two-by-two, trying to keep our genetic late Stephen Jay Gould. company afloat while the greedy world goes Dawkins offers here a into liquidation? In the meantime, Snowball gracious tribute to Gould, Earth makes good spring reading. And when but also turns his incisive you are done, pass it on to any handy analytical and lucid teenager, who will be enthralled, if not by prose against Gould’s the science, then by the storytelling. I with devastating effect. Euan Nisbet is in the Atmospheric Group, For example, Gould’s Department of Geology, Royal Holloway, notion that the - University of , Egham, ary processes that shaped Surrey TW20 0EX, UK. the early of life (with new phyla produced) differ qualita- tively from the processes that direct more Baal and the Golden Calf, Thor and Wotan, recent evolution (with only lower-level taxa Poseidon and Apollo, Mithras and Ammon Gould and God appearing) is deflated in two deft sentences: Ra, they are actually atheists. We are all athe- A Devil’s Chaplain “It is though a gardener looked at an ists about most of the gods that humanity by , old oak tree and remarked wonderingly: has ever believed in. Some of us just go one edited by Latha Menon ‘Isn’t it strange that no major boughs have god further.” But Dawkins goes beyond a Weidenfeld & Nicolson: 2003. 320 pp. appeared on this tree recently. These days, mere defence of . He also subscribes £16.99 all the new growth appears to be at the to the American writer H. L. Mencken’s Jerry A. Coyne twig level!’.” dictum that: “We must respect the other In , the critiques of Gould and God fellow’s , but only in the sense and to The original ‘Devil’s chaplain’ was Robert are not as unrelated as they appear. As this the extent that we respect his theory that his Taylor, an apostate priest and self-styled collection makes clear, Dawkins is a fierce wife is beautiful and his children smart.” ‘ ’ whose rabble-rousing advocate of scientism, the that Why, asks Dawkins, should the public give entourage stormed into in 1829 genuine — as opposed to spiritual or religious any more credibility — halfway through ’s under- personal ‘truths’ that are not universally held than arguments for other brands of non- graduate career. Taylor’s brew of atheism — can be found only through the scientific scientific ‘’? Curiously, Dawkins does and held no allure for young method. Gould was not as strict: he was an not explore why religious ideas get undue Darwin, then a conventional Christian accommodationist,insisting in works such as respect. Surely one is that arguing thoroughly steeped in the hierarchical values Rocks of Ages that both religion and science about religion (especially when one partici- of nineteenth-century Britain. But Darwin are independent and valid domains of pant is an atheist) is unproductive, likely to never forgot Taylor’s nickname. In 1856, enquiry. Dawkins, then, is both scientifically produce only mutual dislike. No rapproche- pondering the brutal inefficiency of natural and philosophically opposed to Gould. ment is possible between those whose beliefs selection, Darwin wrote to his friend Joseph Several books have been written about the derive from and those whose beliefs Hooker: “What a book a devil’s chaplain scientific arguments between Gould and either do not depend on evidence or are might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blun- Dawkins, but Dawkins aficionados outside unshaken by contrary evidence. This is why dering, low and horribly cruel works of Britain have had little exposure to his wither- science and religion are incompatible ways of !” Although creationists constantly ing assaults on religion, and viewing the world. remind us that On the Origin of Species is a accommodationism. It’s a rare treat to see Dawkins’ critique of religion rests on satanic work, Darwin never aspired to suc- him sail into battle, prose and perfectly three points. First, because different ceed Taylor: he was too shy of controversy, attuned to the destructive business at hand. make very different claims about the world, too worried about the of his I should add that A Devil’s Chaplain is not they cannot all be true; and none of the devout wife. wholly focused on religion and Gould: claims (such as the bodily assumption of Richard Dawkins, however, is more than it also includes obituaries of friends, and Mary into ) can be scientifically happy to step into Taylor’s shoes. Religion, essays on , genetic , Africa verified. Second, the choice among faiths is writes Dawkins, is a “malignant ” of (Dawkins spent much of his childhood in not based on rational consideration: the the human mind. Six of the 32 essays in this Kenya) and theory (the collection’s vast majority of people simply practice the eclectic collection (culled largely from the only low point, given my view that ‘mimetics’ religion of their parents. This is especially British press) address religion either directly is an extended tautology that has yielded galling to Dawkins, who sees the easy or indirectly, a surprising statistic for a sci- no real understanding of human ). of children as a product of ence writer whose chair at Oxford University But it’s in religious territory that A Devil’s favouring the rapid spread is dedicated to the public understanding of Chaplain is most compelling. of between . Finally, science. However, another six essays attack “Modern theists,” writes Dawkins, Dawkins considers to be vehicles further impassable routes to “might acknowledge that, when it comes to of evil because they facilitate the labelling

NATURE | VOL 422 | 24 APRIL 2003 | www.nature.com/nature © 2003 Nature Publishing Group 813 spring books and arts of people as either ‘us’ or ‘them’, fostering boy and boy, and man and man, are steady scratch below the surface, you find a socio- xenophobia and its attendant horrors — application and moral effort. It is in the biologist who marginalizes the importance Northern Ireland and the Middle East come most unqualified manner that I object to of culture, or a social constructivist who to mind. pretensions of natural equality.” hates the very of sociobiology, and they These views are summarized in a wonder- The other extreme has also attracted its end up painting caricatures of each other. fully passionate essay, “Time To Stand Up”, own inflexible adherents, most notably True integrative thinking is in the very written shortly after 11 September, 2001. One members of the ‘behaviourist’ school found- early stages.” excerpt: “To label people as death-deserving ed by J. B. Watson, whom Ridley quotes: Nature via Nurture is a book-length enemies because of disagreements about “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well- exercise in ‘integrative thinking’: science real-world politics is bad enough. To do the formed, and my own specified world to writer Matt Ridley has produced a paean same for disagreements about a delusional bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take to interaction that will do much to erode world inhabited by archangels, demons, and any one at random and train him to become the mutually exclusive view of nature and imaginary friends is ludicrously tragic.” any type of specialist I might select: doctor, nurture. Would that there were an , so lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even Interaction is best exemplified in a simple that Robert Taylor could smile upon his beggar-man and thief, regardless of his idea that typically makes an appearance far more effective heir! As Taylor and his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, somewhere near the beginning of a fellow freethinkers knew, atheism in early vocations, and race of his ancestors.” textbook and is then ignored throughout nineteenth-century Britain was blasphemy This polarization remains with us to this the rest of the book: the outcome produced and thus illegal: Taylor was twice jailed for day: the debate is typically couched in terms by a may depend upon the in his activities. Thankfully, such strictures of nature versus nurture, implying that which the gene is expressed. Citing new work are now much rarer, but a subtler form of these factors are mutually exclusive. The by Darlene Francis at Emory University in repression prevails in places such as the issue is clouded by the difficulty of bringing Atlanta, Ridley provides an extraordinary United States. Scientist–atheists, bowing to conclusive evidence to bear. Experiments and elegant example. C57 and BALB strains prevalent notions of politically correct social on humans are impracticable or unethical, of mice differ discretely in some aspects of inclusiveness, are unwilling to express their although the Moghul emperor Akbar, unfet- adult behaviour. But C57 embryos trans- opinions for fear of offending religious tered by regulations on the use of human planted to BALB uteri and raised by BALB sensibilities. But Dawkins makes a strong experimental subjects, did apparently raise mothers display, as adults, aspects of BALB case that most religions are insidious and several individuals in total isolation to deter- behaviour; mere cross-fostering (C57 to dangerous . It’s time for those who mine which religion — , or BALB parent) after birth, however, does not agree to stand up beside him. I — they would spontaneously provoke the change, implying that the uter- Jerry A. Coyne is in the Department of Ecology and embrace. The experiment was inconclusive: ine environment is the critical context. The Evolution, University of Chicago, 1101 E. 57 Street, the lack of stimulation during their develop- C57 genotype expresses Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA. ment turned Akbar’s unfortunate C57-typical human guinea-pigs into deaf mutes. Modern commenta- tors have struggled to The writing on extricate themselves from the straitjacket the slate of Galton’s dichot- Nature via Nurture: , omy. Some genes Experience and What Makes do indeed act Us Human independently of by Matt Ridley the environment: Fourth Estate: 2003. 320 pp. £18.99 regardless of my HarperCollins: 2003. $25.95 or where Andrew Berry I live, I will inevitably develop Is who we are determined ineluctably by our Huntington’s disease biological inheritance or, more malleably, by if I carry the disease- our experience? The debate is surely as old causing . And as human . In 1874 Francis conversely, plenty of our Galton gave it its modern when, behaviour is largely environ- borrowing from Shakespeare’s villain Caliban, mentally determined — that I speak “a devil, a born devil, on whose nature English, not Turkish, is simply a reflection nurture can never stick”, he cast the issue in of where I was raised and by whom. But not terms of what he called a “convenient jingle all behaviour resides at one or other end of of words”: nature and nurture. the spectrum: genes and the environment Having made the distinction, in Heredi- often interact such that the either/or tary Genius Galton then the tone for the categorization of the ‘versus’ view is debate to come by hewing dogmatically to misleading. an extreme position: “I have no patience However, as the evolutionary biol- with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, ogist David Sloan Wilson pointed out and often implied, especially in tales written in the New York on 25 February to teach children to be good, that babies 2003, the rhetorical allure of the extremes are born pretty much alike, and that the remains strong: “Everyone calls them- sole agencies in creating differences between selves an interactionist. Yet often, when you

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