Beyond Demonic Memes: Why Richard Dawkins is Wrong About Religion
Richard Dawkins and I share much in common. We are both biologists by training who have written widely about evolutionary theory. We share an interest in culture as an evolutionary process in its own right. We are both atheists in our personal convictions who have written books on religion. In Darwin’s Cathedral I attempted to contribute to the relatively new field of evolutionary religious studies. When Dawkins’ The God Delusion was published I naturally assumed that he was basing his critique of religion on the scientific study of religion from an evolutionary perspective. I regret to report otherwise. He has not done any original work on the subject and he has not fairly represented the work of his colleagues. Hence this critique of The God Delusion and the larger issues at stake.
Looooong article, with a lot of background on group selection. I've only perused it so far and will probably comment on it some after reading it through in depth. I wanted to pass it along though so y'all could read it, too.
UPDATE: I read it a little more closely (almost) all the way through. Good article. There are some parts more of interest to archys than others. More later.