Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief By Lewis Wolpert Faber & Faber, 243pp. £12.99
Lewis Wolpert annoys people, and it's easy to see why. A university professor and former chairman of the UK Committee on the Public Understanding of Science, he has mounted a bitter war in recent years against "irrationality", as he sees it.
Anti-homeopathy, pro-choice, critical of supposed scaremongering surrounding mad cow disease and genetically-modified foods, he despairs at our tendency to follow (yes, follow) "common sense". Unapologetically elitist, he suggests that science is such a difficult subject it is beyond the understanding of most of us (and therefore something we must take largely on trust, or unquestioningly).
In Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, Wolpert turns his attention to religion. That he will annoy many, and offend perhaps more, is beyond question. However, Wolpert should not be dismissed as some sort of intellectual bigot.
Yes, he disagrees fundamentally with central tenets of religious belief, and in doing so displays occasional insensitivity, if not ignorance, of what "believing" means to the faithful. But, at its core, his book offers a hand of friendship, and not a fist of aggression, across the religious divide.
For the secular, Wolpert presents the option of a middle course between dogmatic faith-bashers such as Richard Dawkins and cowardly apologists for clerical unreason. And for the religious, he makes their faith less threatening in the eyes of atheists, specifically by arguing that religious belief has a "genetic component".
Claiming that religion "may be deeply rooted in our biology", the author states: "There is a tight linkage between genetic evolution and cultural history, and gene-culture evolution has created many human societies with religious beliefs."
His attempts to come to terms with the enduring appeal of irrationality (he cites research showing that more Americans believe in ghosts than in Darwinian evolution) is in part motivated by his personal circumstances. His youngest son is a convert to a "fundamental Christian church" that takes the Bible literally. While Wolpert abhors the church's teachings, he admits his son "has benefited greatly from his religious beliefs".
The author is at his strongest describing the tricks the mind can play on one. Our "belief engine", as he describes it, "prefers quick decisions, it is bad with numbers, loves representativeness, and sees patterns where often there is only randomness. It is too often influenced by authority, and it has a liking for mysticism".
His observations about our suggestibility have a topical flavour, and, significantly, he reminds us that neither Jesus, nor Muhammad, nor Buddha created religious belief.
Moreover, he raises an interesting question as to whether our capacity to believe changes over our lifetimes. He notes that, unlike angst-ridden teenagers and philosophy undergraduates, "children never pick up a rock, or some sand, and ask 'What is this for?'" He could have elaborated on the point by asking whether people reach a moment in their life - the mid- to late-20s perhaps - when they cease asking fundamental questions about their existence.
Wolpert, however, all to often ignores potentially fruitful avenues of investigation, and instead concentrates on advancing a thesis on the primordial roots of religion. He claims religious beliefs "all had their origin in the evolution of causal beliefs, which in turn had its origins in tool use".
The story he tells is a simple one: primates became human as soon as they took up clubs to crack both nuts and skulls. Over time, humans developed skills, unique in the animal kingdom, for tool-making.
As their skills evolved, they began to think about the causes involved in all sorts of activities, from hunting and food gathering to social relationships, illness, and death.
Such thoughts prompted folk-belief around everything, from the world's creation to an afterlife, the legacy of which is still with us today.
A convenient hypothesis but, as he admits himself, a "speculative one". "My evidence is often weak," he confesses with commendable honesty.
Where does that leave his book? Sadly, in something of a muddle. He doesn't bother to assess the merits of counter-hypotheses, leaving us with the impression of an author who just knows he is right but doesn't know why. Matters are not helped by his frequently condescending tone (the product, no doubt, of a career in lecturing), nor by his tendency to exaggerate the stupidity of the common man - and woman.
Do "so many people" believe that infertile couples are more likely to conceive a child if they first adopt one, as he claims? Is there really a "quite widespread" belief among children that illness is a punishment for wrongdoing? Wolpert says there is. But where is his evidence? On more than one occasion, he seems to generalise on the basis of some personal experience (in the case of youthful attitudes to illness, the testimony of his grandchild) - and thus falls foul of his own standards of intellectual rigour.
Perhaps weary from so many public battles, Wolpert also displays signs of going over the top. "Are scientists now all that different, in the public view, to witches?" he asks with a pitiful sigh.
That said, Wolpert reminds us of the danger - not to mention stupidity - of describing scientific knowledge as "just another form of faith". Although popular in fundamentalist religious circles, the view undoubtedly demeans both science and religion.
Wolpert speaks of science as superior to religious belief. But are they really in competition at all? The author himself admits that science and belief can coexist peacefully.
He writes in the final chapter: "It is having beliefs that makes us human." However, he suggests, those beliefs - religious or otherwise - should be undogmatic and amenable to change if new evidence comes along.
That is surely a conclusion with which we all can agree. No?
Joe Humphreys is an Irish Times journalist and author of The Story of Virtue: Universal Lessons on How to Live (The Liffey Press)
Joe Humphreys
Science