Michael Behe, Professor of Biochemistry at LeHigh University in America, is not popular among his colleagues. He thinks Darwin’s theory of natural selection does not explain the origin of life. In saying so not once but twice — he wrote a book about it nine years ago and has just published another — he has caused an enormous row. Darwinism is the lynch pin of western secular society. If Darwin’s theory is wrong we would have to believe in God or some sort of designer. If we abandon Darwin then we abandon the west’s idea of freedom. There is no freedom under religion.

Most modern democracies are, in effect, electoral dictatorships. No doubt it is better than nothing that we can, from time to time, dislodge those who rule us by means of the ballot box, and replace them by
people of similar ilk; but this is far from assuring us our freedom, let alone our happiness.

Of course, modern governments, both national and local, have so many decisions to make that they cannot possibly consult the people on every one of them. Even in Switzerland, whose

The Great Modern Art Fraud may be compared with the South Sea Bubble or with the activities of Horatio Bottomley, (1860-1933), who, understanding how credulous people can be, particularly those with intellectual pretensions, amassed a fortune amounting to sixty million pounds, equal to several billion in to-day’s money.

Some years ago Sir Nicholas Serota was invited to give, on BBC Television, the prestigious Dimbleby Lecture. He began by asserting that he deserves a salary equal to that of the Director of the much larger Victoria and Albert Museum or to that of the Director of the National Gallery, where the paintings are regarded as much more important, because, here I quote: ‘The Director of the Tate has to deal with the difficult problem of Modern Art’ and he then went on to describe one of his favourite works ‘A glass of water on a glass bathroom shelf’.