I thought that silly article needed a comment, so here is what I said at the Independent. Obviously, that was not the place to go into details, and I didn't spend much time thinking it through:

"Speaking as someone who HAS bought this book, I can confirm that it does not have the attitudes and themes asserted by this "review".

"The book makes it clear that science does not YET know everything, but that it is the best method we know of for finding out, for reasons he provides. And that religions (plural, throughout the book) give us contradictory stories that don't have longevity, and sometimes were probably not expected by the originators to be taken literally anyway.

"Expect a lot of attacks on this book! It is subversive; for example, the imagined journey of the time-traveler in chapter 2 shows us evolution in the context of "deep time" in a simple, graphic, way that will surely undermine so many spurious objections to evolution.

"I suspect this book will become a "classic"."

Edit: I think "The Ancestor's Tale" is in the top two or three of Richard's book, and I loved the re-use of the basic idea in chapter 2 in the above manner!