Monthly Archives: December 2009

Steven Landsburg

Richard Dawkins (one of my very favourite writes) has written an entire book called The God Delusion to refute the claims of religion. His arguments strike me as quite unnecessary, because nobody believes those claims anyway. (Do we need a book called The Santa Claus Delusion?) Indeed, Dawkins undercuts his own position when he points to statistics showing that, at least on a state-by-state basis, there is no correlation between religiosity and crime. His point is that religion does not make people better; but he misses the larger point that if religion doesn’t make people better, then most people must not be terribly religious.

Steven Landsburg, The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics, New York, 2009 , p. 58

Charles Murray

Can you think of any earlier moment in history in which you would prefer to live your life? One’s initial reaction may be to answer yes. The thought of living in Renaissance Florence or Samuel Johnson’s London or Paris in La Belle Époque is seductive. But then comes the catch: In whatever era you choose, your station in life will be determined by lottery, according to the distribution of well-being at that time—which means that in Renaissance Florence you are probably going to be poor, work hard at a menial job, and find an early grave.

Charles Murray, Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950, New York, 2003, p. xix