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
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 that they just can’t accept it no matter how much evidence they see. It’s not that we evolved from apes that bothers them so much; it’s [[the emotional consequences of facing that fact.]] And unless we… — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share
“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 science, laden with history's inevitable imponderables. We evolutionary biologists cannot generate a Cretaceous Park to observe exactly what killed the dinosaurs; and, unlike "harder" scientists, we usually cannot resolve issues with a simple experiment, such as… — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share
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 scientific parlor game. But imaginative reconstructions of how things might have evolved are not science; they are stories. Stephen Jay Gould satirized them as ‘Just-So Stories,’ after Kipling’s eponymous book that gave delightful but fanciful explanations… — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share
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, and a scientific disproof of some of faith's claims (e.g., Adam and Eve, the Great Flood). Religion has nothing to contribute to science, and science is best off staying as far away from faith as possible.… — Jerry A. Coyne Copy Share
