From John McCallum
Jonathan Lanman refers to the supposed “universality of religious beliefs”, as many have done before (26 March, p 38). In the society I grew up in, one might also have referred to a universality of belief in Santa Claus, but only if the subjects in the study were restricted to children under 8.
As Richard Dawkins has written, most of us grow out of our early belief in Santa Claus. I trust that religious universality will one day be looked on as a similar kind of sampling error.
Stanmore, New South Wales, Australia
