Third, as has often been noted, the pronouncements of the ultra-Darwinists can shake with a religious fervour. Their texts ring with high-minded rhetoric and dire warnings-not least of the unmitigated evils of religion-all to reveal the path of simplicity and straight thinking.

Richard Dawkins is arguably England's most pious atheist.

Notwithstanding the quasi-religious enthusiasms of ultra-Darwinists, their own understanding of theology is a combination of ignorance and derision, philosophi…

Second, and far more serious, are particular examples of a sophistry and sleight of hand in the misuse of metaphor, and more importantly a distortion of metaph…