Harmonizing religion and science makes you seem like an open-minded and reasonable person, while asserting their incompatibility makes enemies and brands you as “militant.” The reason is clear: religion occupies a privileged place in our society. Attacking it is off-limits,… — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share Image
It is clear, then, that whatever genetic heritage we have, it is not a straitjacket that traps us forever in the "beastly" ways of our forebears. Evolution tells us where we came from, not where we can go. — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share Image
In the end theologians are jealous of science, for they are aware that it has greater authority than do their own ways of finding… — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share Image
“Many people require more than just evidence before they’ll accept evolution. To these folks, evolution raises such profound questions of purpose, morality, and meaning… — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share Image
“since many traits can affect an individual's adaptation to it's environment (it's "fitness") natural selection can over eons sculpt an animal or plant into… — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share Image
These mysteries about how we evolved should not distract us from the indisputable fact that we did evolve. — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share Image
Some believers are fundamentalists about everything, but every believer is a fundamentalist about something. — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share Image
“In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics. For evolutionary biology is a historical… — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share Image
Theology is the post hoc rationalization of what you want to believe. — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share Image
“There is an increasing (and disturbing) tendency of psychologists, biologists, and philosophers to Darwinize every aspect of human behavior, turning its study into a… — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share Image
Can a geology teacher blithely tell his students that the earth is flat, or a European history professor that the Holocaust didn't happen? That's… — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share Image
“Life on earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive life form – perhaps a self-replicating molecule – that lived more than 3.5 billion years… — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share Image
Science has only two things to contribute to religion: an analysis of the evolutionary, cultural, and psychological basis for believing things that aren't true,… — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share Image
