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What it argues
The God Delusion is Richard Dawkins' comprehensive case against religious belief, published in 2006 as the most high-profile work of the New Atheist movement. A scientist by training and a gifted popularizer of evolutionary biology, Dawkins brings a distinctive set of arguments — rooted in natural selection — to the standard philosophical critiques of theism. The book became an international bestseller and one of the most discussed books of the decade, celebrated by atheists and strongly criticized by theologians, philosophers, and many scientists.
Dawkins' central argument is that the hypothesis of God is a scientific hypothesis that can and should be evaluated against the evidence, and that the evidence substantially disconfirms it. The argument from design — the intuition that complex, organized systems must have been designed — is definitively answered by natural selection: complexity can arise from the accumulation of small, undirected steps. A designer would require its own explanation, regressing infinitely; natural selection breaks this regress. This is Dawkins' "central argument" and the one he considers decisive.
What it gets right
- 1.
The God hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis and can be evaluated against evidence; the probability of a God complex enough to design the universe is extremely low.
- 2.
The argument from design is definitively answered by natural selection: complex organized systems can arise through the accumulation of undirected incremental steps.
- 3.
A designer would require its own explanation; positing God as the designer regresses infinitely rather than stopping the chain of explanation.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Richard Dawkins (born 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and science communicator who held the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford from 1995 to 2008. His books include The Selfish Gene (1976), The Blind Watchmaker (1986), and The Ancestor's Tale (2004). The God Delusion (2006) made him the most prominent spokesperson for the New Atheist movement and remains one of the best-selling popular science books of the 21st century. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Literature.
