Publication of the latest book by Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth (London: Transworld, 2009), has triggered more angry attacks on his atheism, including curious defences of a religious attitude by commentators without any discernible supernatural convictions themselves. Some true believers have insisted that they can accept evolution as a divinely creative process. Others have asserted that Dawkins is simply wrong because science and religion are categorically different views of the world.All of these people are, surely, missing the central point. Consider Corynebacterium diphtheriae-a product of evolution, alongside human beings and koala bears, daffodils and pine forests. It kills 5-10% of infected children, producing a toxin that attacks the heart and nervous system and a thick, grey membrane that gradually covers the throat and tonsils, leaving victims gasping for breath. Diphtheria no longer poses these ugly threats in parts of the world privileged to have harnessed vaccination and other benefits of science. But less than a century ago, there were still 100000-200000 cases every year in the USA, 13 000-15 000 of them fatal, with similar figures in many other countries.
展开▼
