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Leaps of Faith: Science, Miracles, and the Search for Supernatural Consolation

nicholas humphrey daniel c. dennett

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"Elegant and literate" -THE TIMES OF LONDON
"The kind of book that both skeptics and believers would do well to read"- SKEPTICAL INQUIRER
"An urbane, original, convincing rebuttal of paranormal and supernatural notions" -NEW SCIENTIST
"A lively, entertaining book... Humphrey has set himself a larger task than simply explaining why people believe in the task of explaining why it is irrational to believe in it."-NATURE

256 pages, Paperback

First published November 16,1995

This edition

Format
256 pages, Paperback
Published
June 4, 1999 by Copernicus
ISBN
9780387987200
ASIN
0387987207
Language
English

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About the author

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nicholas humphrey

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Nicholas Keynes Humphrey is an English neuropsychologist based in Cambridge, known for his work on evolution of primate intelligence and consciousness. He studied mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey in Rwanda; he was the first to demonstrate the existence of "blindsight" after brain damage in monkeys; he proposed the theory of the "social function of intellect". He is the only scientist to have edited the literary journal Granta.
Humphrey played a significant role in the anti-nuclear movement in the late 1970s and delivered the BBC Bronowski memorial lecture titled "Four Minutes to Midnight" in 1981.
His 10 books include Consciousness Regained, The Inner Eye, A History of the Mind, Leaps of Faith, The Mind Made Flesh, Seeing Red, and Soul Dust. He has received several honours, including the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, the Pufendorf Medal and the British Psychological Society's book award.
He has been lecturer in psychology at Oxford, assistant director of the Subdepartment of Animal Behaviour at Cambridge, senior research fellow at Cambridge, professor of psychology at the New School for Social Research, New York, and school professor at the London School of Economics.

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Rating(4.8 / 5.0, 4 votes)
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EmanLily
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 16,2025
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Humprhey's book is easily the most eloquent, well researched, and thoughtful exploration of the human experience of spirituality that I have read. This text explores the psychology of religion in a way that sheds light on the phenomena while managing not to alienate those who believe.
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LuxanAndShadow
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 16,2025
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A nice little primer on why humans continue to believe in the supernatural and various parapsychological powers and abilities. The focus of the book is primarily on logic -- refuting such beliefs through a systematic, logical approach to understanding the universe -- and does not focus much on specifics; it's a very short book and personally I would have liked more detail, but I guess that wasn't the author's approach, and he's pretty good at what he does focus on. My favorite part was something totally new to me -- how Jesus can be seen to figure into a long line of middle eastern magicians and charlatans, and how the concept that he was "preordained" as the Messiah could in fact have created the belief in him, and helped him in his supposed "miracles". This section in particular was quite compelling. A really solid book, and through the references and copious footnotes, I found a lot of other books dealing with similar issues or parts of the arguments to add to my list...
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DYED
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 16,2025
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Some interesting points are made but much of this book is unfocused and difficult to follow. Humphrey relies heavily on quotations from writers/thinkers/scientists which do little to enhance his ideas or help the reader understand where he is going.

I am not sure who the audience for this book is. Someone who has already read things like "The God Delusion" or "God is Not Great" will see this as a step back. Someone who is entrenched in their faith will not be swayed by the arguments presented here. I guess a person who is beginning to feel stirrings of uncertainty in their faith and the paranormal could use it as a stepping stone on their way toward atheism.
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Kyxor
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 16,2025
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A very good, though not exhaustive, look at miracles and other inexplicable phenomenon such as telepathy. Humphrey essentially denies supernatural cause of any kind. His primary arguments are
1) correlation is not causation (when I know what you are thinking it does not automatically follow that I used telepathy)
2) Being unable to identify a rational cause does not mean there is no rational cause.
Good arguments. He is, however, a bit disingenuous in his choice of examples, picking relatively mundane examples that can easily be debunked, while dodging the really big questions that plague science: the big bang, the anthropomorphic universe, life, consciousness, self-awareness, qualia...

I would point out that when a "scientist" speaks of our Universe being one of billions or trillions to explain its existence against improbable odds (Impossible odds, truly), he is reaching squarely into the realm of faith. When one says "I cannot see it or test it. It has no location or velocity. No physical existence whatsoever that I can possibly detect, but that is what caused our Universe." That is pure faith without a shred of scientific backing. Leaps of Faith indeed.
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