The God Delusion

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by Richard Dawkins


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  NOTES

  Preface

  1 Wendy Kaminer, 'The last taboo: why America needs atheism', New Republic, 14 Oct. 1996; http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/kaminer.htm.

  2 Dr Zoe Hawkins, Dr Beata Adams and Dr Paul St John Smith, personal communication.

  Chapter 1: A deeply religious non-believer Deserved respect

  3 The television documentary of which the interview was a part was accompanied by a book (Winston 2005).

  4 Dennett (2006).

  Undeserved respect

  5 The full speech is transcribed in Adams (2003) as 'Is there an artificial God?'

  6 Perica (2002). See also http://www.historycooperative.org/ journals/ahr/108.5/br_151.html.

  7 'Dolly and the cloth heads', in Dawkins (2003).

  8 http://scotus.ap.org/scotus/04-1084p.zo.pdf.

  9 R. Dawkins, 'The irrationality of faith', New Statesman (London), 31 March 1989.

  10 Columbus Dispatch, 19 Aug. 2005.

  11 Los Angeles Times, 10 April 2006.

  12 http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/02/islamic-society-of-denmark-used-fake.html.

  13 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4686536.stm; http://www.neandernews.com/?cat=6.

  14 Independent, 5 Feb. 2006.

  15 Andrew Mueller, 'An argument with Sir IqbaP, Independent on Sunday, 2 April 2006, Sunday Review section, 12-16.

  Chapter 2: The God Hypothesis

  16 Mitford and Waugh (2001).

  Polytheism

  17 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06608b.htm.

  18 http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/indexsnt.htm?NF=l.

  Secularism, the Founding Fathers and the religion of America

  19 Congressional Record, 16 Sept. 1981.

  20 http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/buckner_tripoli.html.

  21 Giles Fraser, 'Resurgent religion has done away with the country vicar', Guardian, 13 April 2006.

  22 Robert I. Sherman, in Free Inquiry 8: 4, Fall 1988, 16.

  23 N. Angier, 'Confessions of a lonely atheist', New York Times Magazine, 14 Jan. 2001: http://www.geocities.com/mindstuff/Angier.html.

  24 http://www.fsgp.org/adsn.html.

  25 An especially bizarre case of a man being murdered simply because he was an atheist is recounted in the newsletter of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia for March/April 2006. Go to http://www.fsgp.org/newsletters/newsletter_ 2006_0304.pdf and scroll down to 'The murder of Larry Hooper'.

  26 http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2001/ll/18/ stories/2001111800070400.htm.

  The poverty of agnosticism

  27 Quentin de la Bedoyere, Catholic Herald, 3 Feb. 2006.

  28 Carl Sagan, 'The burden of skepticism', Skeptical Inquirer 12, Fall 1987.

  29 I discussed this case in Dawkins (1998).

  30 T. H. Huxley, 'Agnosticism' (1889), repr. in Huxley (1931). The complete text of 'Agnosticism' is also available at http:// www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_huxley/ huxley_wace/part_02.html.

  31 Russell, 'Is there a God?' (1952), repr. in Russell (1997b).

  32 Andrew Mueller, 'An argument with Sir Iqbal', Independent on Sunday, 2 April 2006, Sunday Review section, 12-16.

  33 New York Times, 29 Aug. 2005. See also Henderson (2006).

  34 Henderson (2006).

  35 http://www.lulu.com/content/267888.

  The Great Prayer Experiment

  36 H. Benson et al., 'Study of the therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer (STEP) in cardiac bypass patients', American Heart Journal 151: 4, 2006, 934-42.

  37 Richard Swinburne, in Science and Theology News, 7 April 2006, http://www.stnews.org/Commentary-2772.htm.

  38 New York Times, 11 April 2006.

  The Neville Chamberlain school of evolutionists

  39 In court cases, and books such as Ruse (1982). His article in Playboy appeared in the April 2006 issue.

  40 Jerry Coyne's reply to Ruse appeared in the August 2006 issue of Playboy.

  41 Madeleine Bunting, Guardian, 27 March 2006.

  42 Dan Dennett's reply appeared in the Guardian, 4 April 2006.

  43 http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/03/the_ dawkinsdennett_boogeyman.php; http://scienceblogs.com/ pharyngula/2006/02/our_double_standard.php; http://scienceblogs. com/pharyngula/2006/02/the_rusedennett_feud.php.

  Little green men

  44 http://vo.obspm.fr/exoplanetes/encyclo/encycl.html.

  45 Dennett (1995).

  Chapter 3: Arguments for God's existence

  The ontological argument and other a priori arguments

  46 http://www.iep.utm.edu/o/ont-arg.htm. Gasking's 'proof is at http://www.uq.edu.au/~pdwgrey/pubs/gasking.html.

  The argument from personal 'experience'

  47 The whole subject of illusions is discussed by Richard Gregory in a series of books including Gregory (1997).

  48 My own attempt at spelling out the explanation is on pp. 268-9 of Dawkins (1998).

  49 http://www.sofc.org/Spirituality/s-of-fatima.htm.

  The argument from scripture

  50 Tom Flynn, 'Matthew vs. Luke', Free Inquiry 25: 1, 2004, 34-45; Robert Gillooly, 'Shedding light on the light of the world', Free Inquiry 25: 1, 2004, 27-30.

  51 Erhman (2006). See also Ehrman (2003a, b).

  The argument from admired religious scientists

  52 Beit-Hallahmi and Argyle (1997).

  53 E. J. Larson and L. Witham, 'Leading scientists still reject God', Nature 394, 1998, 313.

  54 http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9610/reeves.html gives a particularly interesting analysis of historical trends in American religious opinion by Thomas C. Reeves, Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, based on Reeves (1996).

  55 http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3506.asp.

  56 R. Elisabeth Cornwell and Michael Stirrat, manuscript in preparation, 2006.

  57 P. Bell, 'Would you believe it?', Mensa Magazine, Feb. 2002, 12-13.

  Chapter 4: Why there almost certainly is no God The Ultimate Boeing 747

  58 An exhaustive review of the provenance, usages and qu
otations of this analogy is given, from a creationist point of view, by Gert Korthof, at http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho46a.htm.

  Natural selection as a consciousness-raiser

  59 Adams (2002), p. 99. My 'Lament for Douglas', written the day after his death, is reprinted as the Epilogue to The Salmon of Doubt, and also in A Devil's Chaplain, which also has my eulogy at his memorial meeting in the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

  60 Interview in Der Spiegel, 26 Dec. 2005.

  61 Susskind (2006: 17).

  The worship of gaps

  62 Behe (1996).

  63 http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/design2/article.html.

  64 This account of the Dover trial, including the quotations, is from A. Bottaro, M. A. Inlay and N. J. Matzke, 'Immunology in the spotlight at the Dover "Intelligent Design" trial', Nature Immunology 7, 2006, 433-5.

  65 J. Coyne, 'God in the details: the biochemical challenge to evolution', Nature 383, 1996, 227-8. The article by Coyne and me, 'One side can be wrong', was published in the Guardian, 1 Sept. 2005: http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1559743,00.html. The quotation from the 'eloquent blogger' is at http://www.religionisbullshit.net/blog/2005_09_01_archive.php.

  66 Dawkins (1995).

  The anthropic principle: planetary version

  61 Carter admitted later that a better name for the overall principle would be 'cognizability principle' rather than the already entrenched term 'anthropic principle': B. Carter, 'The anthropic principle and its implications for biological evolution', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A, 310, 1983, 347-63. For a book-length discussion of the anthropic principle, see Barrow and Tipler (1988).

  68 Comins (1993).

  69 I spelled this argument out more fully in The Blind Watchmaker (Dawkins 1986).

  The anthropic principle: cosmological version

  70 Murray Gell-Mann, quoted by John Brockman on the 'Edge' website, http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/smolin.html.

  71 Ward (1996: 99); Polkinghorne (1994: 55).

  An interlude at Cambridge

  72 J. Horgan, 'The Templeton Foundation: a skeptic's take', Chronicle of Higher Education, 7 April 2006. See also http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/horgan06/horgan06_index.html.

  73 P. B. Medawar, review of The Phenomenon of Man, repr. in Medawar (1982: 242).

  74 Dennett (1995: 155).

 

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