A Devil's Chaplain Explained

A Devil's Chaplain
Border:	yes
Author:	Richard Dawkins
Country:	United Kingdom
Language:	English
Subject:	Evolutionary biology
Published:	2003 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin)
Media Type:	Print
Pages:	264 pp.
Isbn:	0-618-33540-4
Dewey:	500 21
Congress:	QH366.2 .D373 2003
Oclc:	52269209
Preceded By:	Unweaving the Rainbow
Followed By:	The Ancestor's Tale

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

External links

• Review by Michael Ruse, 2003. "Through a Glass, Darkly." American Scientist.
• Review by Richard Holloway, 2003. "A callous world." The Guardian.

Notes and References

1. 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)."
2. Web site: Darwin. Charles. 13 July 1856. Letter to J D Hooker. 8 January 2021. Darwin Project, University of Cambridge.
3. http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/scienceandnature/story/0,6000,892495,00.html "Darwin's child"
4. News: Dawkins versus the priests and New Age shamans? No contest. Robin. McKie. The Observer. 9 March 2003.