Reviews and Comments
The book was praised by Salley Vickers in The Times, and Madeleine Bunting in The Guardian, John Polkinghorne in The Times Literary Supplement and Peter Stanford in The Independent and was named one of the 'Books of the Year' by the Financial Times.
Anthony Kenny reviewed the book in The Tablet noting that both Cornwell and Dawkins fail to observe the prime rule of intellectual debate, that one should attack the opponent's arguments, not his personality. Kenny goes on to say that neither The God Delusion nor Darwin's Angel "provides the reader with sufficient grounds for a reasoned conclusion" about God's existence. A profile of Darwin's Angel in New Scientist by Amanda Gefter criticised Cornwell for confusing two meanings of "religion" demarcated in The God Delusion and for holding one religion in higher esteem than any other. She also suggested that both books are part of a modern debate that is suffering from the fact that the two sides do not concentrate on one definition of religion.
Darwin's Angel is listed on the RichardDawkins.net website as one of several "fleas" following The God Delusion.
According to Dawkins, the book contains a number of inaccurate portrayals of what he actually said. Dawkins questions whether these are "honest mistakes or willful mendacity". He suggests six examples where his writing has been quoted out of context or otherwise misrepresented. For example, Cornwell suggests that Dawkins would have been in favour of Social Darwinism when in A Devil's Chaplain Dawkins claims to have explicitly condemned such views and says no one supports such ideas any more.
Read more about this topic: Darwin's Angel
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