When he's facing difficulty Richard Dawkins turns to ...

...God.

Such as when he can't carry out his brag that he knows the name of that Darwin fellow's book:

For once, Richard Dawkins is lost for words," Stephen Pollard crowed recently in a widely read column in Britain's Daily Telegraph. "Atheists' arrogance is their Achilles' heel, as cringe-making radio performance has proved."

The performance in question has Dawkins stumbling, uncharacteristically, when pressed to give the full title to Darwin's major treatise "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" (1859). His awkward attempt quickly lit up the Internet, not least because it took place on national radio, with millions of Britons listening. Not that many people off-the-cuff would likely recall the full title of Darwin's book, including its contentious subtitle: "or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." But it is surprising that Dawkins, of all people, would forget the part of the title that captures Darwin's key argument, his emphasis on "natural selection."

The transcript of the interview -- which quickly went viral -- has Dawkins floundering: "On the Origin of Species...Uh... with ..., oh, God, On the Origin of Species. Um. There is a sub-title ... Um ... with respect to the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."

Oh...who?

That's right up there with Dawkins' comment that we "weren't put here" to be made happy by fairy tales.

Put here???

By who?

Then Dawkins does his typical tendentious dance to explain away his embarrassment at being hoisted by his own petard:

On his website, Dawkins declared that he'd been "ambushed" by the question. And, granted, the full title is a lot more difficult to recall than the name "Matthew" for the opening Gospel to the New Testament, as Dawkins was trying to convey. He was seeking more broadly to imply, from the fact that so many Britons call themselves "Christian" without remembering that author or consistently attending church, that their self-description shouldn't be thought very meaningful. Certainly, not enough to warrant their being called "Christian" in the first place.

Check out this video:



Dawkins brags that he can certainly name the book. In no way was he "ambushed," nor does he say that he was ambushed.