A Devil's Chaplain
0-618-33540-4
A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love is a 2003 book of selected essays and other writings by Richard Dawkins. Published five years after Dawkins's previous book Unweaving the Rainbow, it contains essays covering subjects including pseudoscience, genetic determinism, memetics, terrorism, religion and creationism. A section of the book is devoted to Dawkins' late adversary Stephen Jay Gould.
The book's title is a reference to a quotation of Charles Darwin, in a letter to J.D. Hooker dated 13 July 1856, made in reference to Darwin's lack of belief in how "a perfect world" was designed by God (and a reference to Reverend Robert Taylor): "What a book a devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature!"[1][2][3]
Reception
Robin McKie reviewed the book for The Observer and stated that the book contained a mixture of touching essays and "the good, old knockabout stuff at which Dawkins excels".[4]
See also
- Argument from poor design
- Great Ape Project
References
- ^ This was written in 1856 as Darwin worked towards the publication of his theory, and has been related to his memories of his time at university when an "Infidel home missionary tour" by the Reverend Robert Taylor warned Darwin of the dangers of dissent from church doctrine. While Taylor was subsequently nicknamed "the devil's chaplain," the term goes back further, and Geoffrey Chaucer has his Parson say "Flatereres been the develes chapelleyns, that syngen evere placebo" in a reference to Placebo (at funeral)."
- ^ Darwin, Charles (13 July 1856). "Letter to J D Hooker". Darwin Project, University of Cambridge. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
- ^ "Darwin's child", profile by Simon Hattenstone, The Guardian, 10 February 2003.
- ^ McKie, Robin (9 March 2003). "Dawkins versus the priests and New Age shamans? No contest". The Observer.
External links
- Review by Michael Ruse, 2003. "Through a Glass, Darkly." American Scientist.
- Review by Richard Holloway, 2003. "A callous world." The Guardian.
- v
- t
- e
- The Selfish Gene (1976)
- The Extended Phenotype (1982)
- The Blind Watchmaker (1986)
- River Out of Eden (1995)
- Climbing Mount Improbable (1996)
- Unweaving the Rainbow (1998)
- A Devil's Chaplain (2003)
- The Ancestor's Tale (2004)
- The God Delusion (2006)
- The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (2009)
- The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True (2011)
- An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist (2013)
- Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science (2015)
- Science in the Soul: Selected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist (2017)
- Outgrowing God: A Beginner's Guide (2019)
- Books Do Furnish a Life: Reading and Writing Science (2021)
- Flights of Fancy: Defying Gravity by Design and Evolution (2021)
- Growing Up in the Universe (1991)
- Dawkins vs. Gould (2001)
- Beyond Belief (2006)
- Richard Dawkins: How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think (2006)
- The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing (2008)
- Nice Guys Finish First (1987)
- The Blind Watchmaker (1987)
- Break the Science Barrier (1996)
- The Atheism Tapes (2004)
- The Root of All Evil? (2006)
- The Enemies of Reason (2007)
- The Genius of Charles Darwin (2008)
- Faith School Menace? (2010)
- Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life (2012)
- The Unbelievers (2013)
- Meme
- Atheist Bus Campaign
- Out Campaign
- Gerin oil
- Foundation for Reason and Science
- Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science
- Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit
- Lalla Ward
- Weasel program
- Marian Dawkins
- Middle World
- Go God Go
- Go God Go XII
- God's utility function
- Courtier's reply
- Spectrum of theistic probability
- Universal Darwinism
- Endless Forms Most Beautiful
- When the Professor Got Stuck in the Snow
- Richard Dawkins Award
- Category