A year and a half ago Richard Dawkins caused more than his usual stir when he tweeted that the entire Muslim population had won fewer Nobels than Trinity College Cambridge.

This week the scientist admitted that he had actually censored himself. In an interview on Newsnight, he said that he was originally going to write Jews rather than Trinity.

Tackling him about the tweet, the programme’s presenter Evan Davis asked him why he had made such an invidious comparison.

Dawkins responded, “It is a fact that in the dark ages the Islamic world was a beacon of scientific progress and enlightenment. And something has gone wrong.

“I had dinner with the then Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, a few months ago and learned there the astonishing fact that between 20 and 25 per cent of all scientific Nobel prizes had been won by Jews. And I thought that was a stunning fact, it really is when you think the total population of Jews in the world is tiny compared to any of the other major religions, I wanted to make this point that Islam has stagnated in the scientific field since the Middle Ages.

“And the best comparison to make would have been with Jews. I thought Oh no, I can’t do that because that will really upset people because of Palestine and I am very sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian people in Israel. So at the last minute I crossed out Jews and stuck in Trinity College Cambridge.”