Darwin's Angel
Darwin's Angel is a book published in response to Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion". It was written by John Cornwell and subtitled "An Angelic Riposte to The God Delusion". Cornwell runs a "Public Understanding of Science" programme at Jesus College, Cambridge, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. He has previously written reviews of religious and scientific books, including other works of Dawkins. He stated that he finds "The God Delusion" harmful in its failure to tackle the problem of extremism, and wrong on many important issues. Summary. In this book, Cornwell adopts  the persona of the guardian angel of Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel, who is now looking after Richard Dawkins. He pens a letter to Dawkins in 21 chapters. Reviews and comments. The book was praised by Salley Vickers in "The Times", Madeleine Bunting in "The Guardian", John Polkinghorne in "The Times Literary Supplement" and Peter Stanford in "The Independent" and was named one of the 'Books of the Year' by the "Financial Times". Anthony Kenny reviewed the book in "The Tablet" noting that both Cornwell and Dawkins fail to observe the prime rule of intellectual debate, that one should attack  the opponent's arguments, not his personality. Kenny goes on to say that neither "The God Delusion" nor "Darwin's Angel" "provides the reader with sufficient grounds for a reasoned conclusion" about God's existence. A profile of "Darwin's Angel" in "New Scientist" by Amanda Gefter criticised Cornwell for confusing two meanings of "religion" demarcated in "The God Delusion" and for holding one religion in higher esteem than any other. She also suggested that both books are part of a modern debate that is suffering from the fact that the two sides do not concentrate on one definition of  religion. "Darwin's Angel" is listed on the RichardDawkins.net website as one of several "fleas" following "The God Delusion". According to Dawkins, the book contains a number of inaccurate portrayals of what he actually said. Dawkins questions whether these are "honest mistakes or willful mendacity". He suggests six examples where his writing has been quoted out of context or otherwise misrepresented. For example, Cornwell suggests that Dawkins would have been in favour of Social Darwinism when in "A Devil's Chaplain" Dawkins has explicitly condemned such views and says no one supports such ideas any more. Darwin's Angel Darwin