Earlier this month I noted
Jerry Coyne's New Republicreview
of Robert Wright's book The Evolution of God, mentioning
at the time that an earlier, similar essay of Coyne's had
provoked some interesting responses. Although it took a while,
this one too has elicited what is really an
evisceration from Jim Manzi. Manzi shows that Coyne, the
scientist, has based his argument on a confused notion of
randomness that in fact conflates several different meanings of
the word random. Again, I think both the article and the response
are well worth reading.