Science and Poetry: Mary Midgley, Routledge
ISBN 978-0415378482, 328 pages, paperback, £9.69

Having just read and enjoyed Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science. 2001.Edited by Robert Aunger. Oxford: Oxford University Press, I found Science and Poetry to be an equally useful and broader addition to the debate over the connection between the natural sciences and sociology. The aim of the book is to see how the ideas of science and poetry might be brought together to elucidate the problem of 'personal identity' - 'who and what we are'

Midgely covers three areas of interest in her book. First, in the section 'Visions of rationality' she adds morality, emotion, imagination, visioning and bounded rationality to the traditional view of wholly rational scientists and of science as the source of the ultimate explanation of life. Second, in the section 'Mind and Body: The End of Apartheid,' she discusses the problem of consciousness and the need to become more conscious of consciousness. Here she criticises science for reducing humanity to social atomism, thus making the concept of society questionable. Third, in her last section, 'In what kind of world,' she re-introduces the role of morality and civil rights, arguing that we have a duty to help other citizens. To make her point she uses the concept of Gaia, which she states, unlike most excursions of science into the social world, has a moral and religious element, a multi-level non-atomistic view of the world, and an emphasis on the need to act collectively to stop global warming. In building her argument, Midgely makes the point that to differentiate so strongly between science and non-science is unhelpful. Neither is rational and both are part of the whole. Similarly, it is unhelpful to differentiate between living and dead, because in Gaian terms the whole planet is alive.

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The New Atheism: Mike Poole, Lion
ISBN 978 0 7459 5393 9, 64 pages, paperback, £3.99

The new atheists’ arguments seem to be getting more and more coverage in the media and in the public eye. But do their arguments really hold water? This is a short, accessible and inexpensive introduction tothe key arguments of the new atheists. Using the analogy put forward by esteemed philosopher Anthony Flew, Poole shows how the new atheists present readers with a sum of arguments which are individually defective, as though the cumulative effect should be persuasive. In fact, as he demonstrates conclusively, the arguments of the new atheists are themselves flawed.

CONTENTS:

• Un-Natural Selection or ‘Down with sex!
• Faith is believing what you know ain’t so’
• People Who Live in Glasshouses...
  - ‘...and may be used in evidence’?
• Ancient.doc
• Explaining explaining
• Where do we draw the line?
• An Endangered Species?
• Back to the Drawing Board - but Whose?
• Unpeeling the cosmic onion

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New Edition: User's Guide to Science and Belief: Mike Poole, Lion

Science and belief are both very important for us in our 21st century society. Is it really necessary to chose between them? The view that science and belief are in conflict is a major stumbling block for many students today. In this new and substantially re-written edition of the best selling User's Guide to Science and Belief, Michael Poole addresses the issue and explores the interaction between science and religious beliefs.

Topics covered include:

• Do science and the Bible contradict each other?
• Is faith believing what you know is not true?
• Does science rule out miracles?
• Has the work of Darwin ruled out the idea of a creating God?
• Is the universe a cosmic accident or God's design?

Updated and enlarged to take account of the changing field, the User's Guide to Science and Belief is a concise, clear and colour-illustrated introduction, ideal for both general readers and students.

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This book is a more than useful contribution to the `Dawkins Debate' and one which has helped me to understand more about the flawed arguments contained within `The God Delusion'.

The book comprises a series of ten letters to Dawkins, the first of which was published on Dawkins' own website, which counter the arguments in Dawkins' book chapter by chapter. Robertson is clearly well-read and marshals his arguments in a balanced and intellectually sound way. But this is not an inaccessible academic treatise; he writes clearly and understandably in such a way that most people will be able to grasp the arguments easily. He avoids the temptation to `rubbish' Dawkins, just dismantles and challenges his arguments frankly and cohesively.

The final letter (to the reader) "Why Believe", contains a very useful and extensive reading list which most will never get to read in entirety but is helpful to have.

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I give this book three stars, not so much as a judgement on it as a polemic or work of scholarship, but in order to establish my impartiality for what follows. Whether or not God exists, it is clear that both atheists and theists have any number of brilliant minds to defend their views. BUT - looking at these reviews, by far the most aggressive and arrogant come from atheists. Words such as 'anti-intellectualism' and 'claptrap' are singularly inappropriate coming from people who, like myself, could not hold a candle to the compassionate souls and gifted minds who do believe in God. Indeed, the tones and descriptions seem a perfect example of the 'belittle, demonise, distort' method McGrath claims is used by Dawkins. Forgive me if I do you an injustice, but such abusive language does not constitute rational, gracious argument which is the atheist's Holy Grail. You cannot afford to be so convinced you have won the argument that you can pour such scorn on your opponents.

Also underlying such language there is the unpleasant feeling that purely because McGrath is arguing for a deity, he somehow must not only be a charlatan, but also morally suspect - and that because atheists have alighted on what they believe to be a morally superior way of life(nothing wrong with thinking this; that is what debate and thought are all about) atheists believe this makes them automatically morally superior beings. Such foolishness is of course perpetrated by religious believers on an equal scale, but this should surely give the lie to the claim that possession or non-possession of a belief is in itself the key to being a better person. Atheism and theism offer their own moral codes; it is up to the individual character to try and make himself follow its rules. Because the execution of each is in the hands of flawed beings, each is as open to abuse and perversion as the other. Oversimplification as this may be, it is surely at the root of the explanation of why some Christians open soup kitchens for the starving while others see fit to call for the murder of homosexuals, and how also atheism, if it did not cause, certainly did not prevent, men from being so consumed by hatred that they devastated Russia.

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This is a small book, printed on thick paper with big margins - which sounds like a criticism, but, since it makes its case succintly, stylishly and, for the most part, carefully, really functions as a dig at Richard Dawkins' big book, The God Delusion, which brims with ideas apparently cribbed from stage 1 philosophy notes - the implication being that a more careful and detailed exposition would be lost on the sort of reader who was impressed with Richard Dawkins' original arguments.

Cornwell's book strikes just the right tone - faintly amused and rather derisive of Dawkins' great foray into religious studies: treating a dogmatic zoologist as a serious entrant in the philophy of religion would be to afford him too much respect: a courtesy Dawkins himself wouldn't extend for a moment if confronted with a dogmatic religious fundamentalist wishing to discuss biology (famously, Dawkins refuses to even debate such people).

Cornwell is also wise not to get dragged too far into the merits of the issue (i.e., whether there actually is a God) and instead spends his few pages more profitably remarking that, whatever ones position on that question, Dawkins' arguments simply can't carry the day, unless you really want them to.

That's important because Cornwell can therefore carry along skeptics like me, who don't personally subscribe to religious belief, but still find Dawkins' dogmatic essentialism a crashing bore.

Along the way Cornwell makes some thumping scores and while, as other reviewers have noted, he may misconstrue Dawkins' arguments in a couple of places, they don't really make a difference and, in any case, for a Dawkinite to make that protest really is to call the kettle black. The scores he does make are doozies, and one in particular stood out: Dawkins' support for Martin Rees' rebuttal of the Anthropic Principal by means of the "multiverse" - the suggestion that there are many universes, co-existing like bubbles of foam, in a "multiverse", and only one of these universes needs to have the right "bye-laws" to sustain evolved life. Of course, that's a moronic idea, and Cornwell shows admirable restraint in his derision: "there are no more observable data for this "suggestion" than the positing of [Bertrand Russell's hypothetical] miniature teapot circumnavigating the earth". Quite.

In other words, Richard Dawkins is prepared to resort to unfalsifiable, non-causal explanations when it suits him, along with the best of the theists he decries.

I still think there is room for a book taking an expressly non-religious (and therefore non-defensive) line - that the scientific realism that Dawkins insists on is indefensible; that there is room on the planet for religious, literary, scientific and moral stories to sit alongside each other - that they need not (and given their different applications, cannot) get in each others way: the late Stephen Jay Gould got closest to that with his appeal for religious-scientific detente in "Rocks of Ages", and the late Richard Rorty, especially in "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" and "Philosophy and Social Hope" had a thing or two to say about it, too.

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How refreshing to read a book by a scientist about faith in God which is totally free of the hyperbole, intemperance and aggression of other recent publications! Collins frames his proposals with humility and his criticisms with care and respect - if only all contributions to the God debate could be written in a similarly gracious manner (whether by theist or atheist) we'd all be better off - and more light than heat would be generated.

This book is extremely valuable for two important reasons.

First, Collins is an extremely eminent scientist. As director of the Human Genome Project, Collins is possibly one the most respected scientists in the world and he is also committed believer in God. His scientific integrity is beyond question - indeed his harshest words are directed towards creationists who abandon any pursuit of science and he is strongly critical of Intelligent Design - and yet he sees no contradiction between his scientific discoveries and his belief in God.

Second, Collins used to be an adamant atheist. This is no "dyed-in-the-wool faith-head" (to use a memorable but misleading description) - Collins was brought up by free-thinking, non-believing, liberal parents and only later in his adult life arrived at his Christian faith after a painstakingly rational search which thoroughly examined the evidence.

Consequently this book slays two great myths currently doing the rounds. Collins demolishes the notion that science and faith are contradictory or in conflict - not only do a huge number of scientists have a theistic faith, the vast majority of those who don't see no contradiction between being a believer and being a scientist. The myth of a great battle between science and faith is simply a dragon conjured up by fundamentalists on both sides of the atheist/theist debate to stoke the fires of antipathy. Secondly, Collins demonstrates that there is nothing irrational about faith. Faith, by its very nature, goes beyond reason, but it is no way contrary to reason. In describing his own faith-journey (from agnosticism to atheism to theism to Christianity) Collins shows how a reasonable, rational and open-minded search for truth can easily lead to Christianity.

Although this faith-journey is perhaps too briefly outlined to properly cover the philosophical themes he brings up it provides useful context to the heart of the book where Collins shows how faith and science can sit quite happily side-by-side - indeed he shows how this was always the belief of people like Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and Einstein.

Collins communicates his enthusiasm for science in an infectious, accessible manner, and I found myself (as a non-scientist) captivated by the amazing world of genes and DNA. As a scientist, Collins' can marvel at the wonders of the order of the cosmos beyond and the intricacies of the double-helix within whilst at the same time, as a believer, seeing the hand of a divine designer in both.

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A very helpful discussion of a neglected and important subject' Mary Midgley. Nick Spencer draws on Darwin's autobiography, manuscripts, notebooks and letters - as well as his world-famous publications - in exploring Darwin's view of design, purpose, morality, the universe and the human mind. The author argues that, although Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection did undermine his Christian faith, it was the age-old problem of suffering - first in theory, then through the dreadful loss of his favourite child - that caused it to break down. Darwin and God is the first full-length account of Darwin's religious beliefs to be published in the UK. Meticulously-researched, it presents a moving, compelling and tumultuous story of one of the world's greatest scientists.

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