During the Darwin-mania of 2009, the think tank Theos (for which I work) conducted research into anti-evolutionary beliefs. We unearthed two critical facts. First, many more people reject evolution than ever darkened a church door. So this is clearly not a simple question of Darwin vs Genesis. Secondly, one of the reasons for their rejection is not what evolution seems to say about God, but what it said about “Man”. People find it hard to accept that they are “nothing but” primates/ genes/ survival machines.Roger Scruton is one of the most lucid articu­lators of this discomfort at a purely materialist account of human origins. The Soul of the World is based on his 2011 Stanton Lectures at Cambridge University. His keystone is that Darwinism, and behind it scien