A New Book on Believing

Sorry, Mr. Dawkins. John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge—The Economist’s EIC and Washington bureau chief, respectively—have published a new book, God is Back. It's about the resurgence of religion in everyday life, and argues that the factors behind market capitalism, competition and choice, have driven religion to become more popular. This seems like it’d be a hard thesis to prove, and Michiko Kakutani says their methodology is fundamentally flawed, because they ignore all contradictory evidence. She writes: “The last section heading in the last chapter of this unpersuasive book reads, “God Is Back, for Better,” which, in retrospect, seems like an apt summary of this volume’s poorly argued thesis, as well as its nonagnostic point of view.”