Thanks, Ramesh. If indeed Wieseltier is only refuting an assertion by Dennett that proof of the evolutionary origins of religious belief would invalidate the truths of religion, then he is saying a thing I said on NRO a few weeks ago: “If there is a God, and He wants us to know Him, why then, of course He would endow us with a religious instinct.” There isn’t much to that. We have an ability, very likely an evolved one, to deduce that seven times eight equals fifty-six. Well, seven times eight **does** equal fifty-six. So I believe, anyway. The evolutionary origins of my belief are neither here nor there. I can’t see why this shouldn’t apply to religious beliefs too. But if it **doesn’t**, and someone could prove that it doesn’t, then seven times eight might still be equal to fifty-six. That was my problem with the reader’s point.

I think Wieseltier is doing more than that, though. I think, in fact, his vituperative review may be a harbinger of an interesting phenomenon: Left Creationists kissing up to Right Creationists. With the ever-swelling mass of results coming in from investigations of the human genome, both positions are in deep trouble. The Right Creationists are already responding by cozying up to the Left Creationists–you will see, a little further down The Corner, Tom Bethell (RC) saying flattering things about Richard Lewontin (LC). Well, it may be that my original tagging of Wieseltier as LC was correct, but that he is sending love notes to RCs in the hope of “saving the appearances,” and that his Dennett review is such a love note. Just a guess.

[NB: For those not familiar with the jargon:

A Left Creationist is a person who believes that with the emergence of modern man 50 or 100,000 years ago, Nature’s creation–flash image of a 19th-century English gent with a long white beard–attained perfection, and that human beings have not undergone the slightest evolutionary change since, MOST CERTAINLY NOT by different geographical populations changing in different ways.

A Right Creationist** is a person who believes that with the emergence of modern man 50 or 100,000 years ago, God’s creation–flash image of an Old Testament deity with a long white beard–attained perfection, and that we have undergone no biological change since, only improvements in our moral understanding and better hopes of a happy afterlife.

Both the LC and RC positions are threatened by (a) a growing pile of evidence that human evolution has been chugging merrily along this past 50,000 years, and (b) that we shall soon be able to lend a hand, changing innate human nature in ways both desirable and not. These are the things that need our attention, and that we ought to be talking about. LCs and RCs, however, prefer to busy themselves with organizing cavalry charges against the oncoming Panzers.

** At any rate, of the Old Earth variety–there is also a Young Earth species of Right Creationists, who believe the Genesis account of creation to be literally true, and so have no truck with time spans of 50,000 years, or with the “emergence” of anything at all.]