Jerry Coyne quotes

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Jerry Coyne

Birthdate: 30. December 1949

Jerry Allen Coyne is an American biologist known for his work on speciation and his commentary on intelligent design. A prolific scientist and author, he has published numerous papers elucidating the theory of evolution. He is currently a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago in the Department of Ecology and Evolution. His concentration is speciation and ecological and evolutionary genetics, particularly as they involve the fruit fly, Drosophila.He is the author of the text Speciation and the bestselling non-fiction book Why Evolution Is True. Coyne maintains a website and writes for his blog, also called Why Evolution Is True. He is a hard determinist.Coyne gained attention outside of the scientific community when he publicly criticized religion and is often cited with atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. He is the author of the book Faith vs Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible. Coyne officially retired in 2015.

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Photo: Emma Rodewald, Jerry Coyne / CC BY-SA 3.0

Works

Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Jerry Coyne

Quotes Jerry Coyne

„Religion is heavily laden with the kind of confirmation bias that makes people see their own faiths as true and all others as false. In other words, religion is replete with features to help people fool themselves.“

— Jerry Coyne, book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 29

People, Faith, Religion, Fools

„I was flabbergasted. How could it be that someone found evidence convincing but was still not convinced? The answer, of course, was that his religion had immunized him against my evidence.“

— Jerry Coyne, book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. xv

Religion

„Religion may be a quest for the truth, but it has no way of finding the truth, or verifying what it claims to find. Our knowledge of what God is like has not advanced one iota over the ideas of the 1500s.
And insofar as theological interpretation has changed, it’s done so not as a result of faith’s quest for truth, but of pressure from science and secular morality. Really, can any theologian, philosopher, or scientist tell me anything about God now that we didn’t know 500 years ago? Then ask a scientist what we know now about science that we didn’t know in 1500.“

— Jerry Coyne

" Do both science and faith produce truth? http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/do-both-science-and-faith-produce-truth/" August 11, 2012

God, Truth, Faith, Religion

„The editorial, very poorly written for a college full of smart students, shows how far this “hate speech” cancer has spread. Let me provide for you Coyne’s Glossary for the words at issue:
:“free speech”: Speech that you like because it comports with your ideology

:“hate speech”: Speech you don’t like because it challenges your ideology

:“Nazi”: Anyone uttering “hate speech” (see above)

:“White supremacist”: See “Nazi”

:“emotional labor”: Having to argue your case rationally—something to be avoided at all costs when you can simply call people names“

— Jerry Coyne

see “Nazi”
" Latest college shenanigans by the Regressive Left: censorship at Pomona and UCLA; Wellesley student paper publishes “we need free speech but...” editorial https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/04/21/latest-news-about-college-shenanigans-by-the-regressive-left-censorship-at-pomona-and-ucla-wellesley-student-paper-writes-we-need-free-speech-but-article/" April 21, 2017

Hate, People

„Some believers are fundamentalists about everything, but every believer is a fundamentalist about something.“

— Jerry Coyne

" An aphorism for atheism http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/an-aphorism-for-atheism/" September 3, 2013

„In the end, why isn’t it better to find out how the world really works instead of making up stories about it, or accepting stories concocted centuries ago?“

— Jerry Coyne, book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 260

World

„The rapid change in many aspects of morality, even in the last century, also suggests that much of its “innateness” comes not from evolution but from learning. That’s because evolutionary change simply doesn’t occur fast enough to explain societal changes like our realization that women are not an inferior moiety of humanity, or that we shouldn’t torture prisoners. The explanation for these changes must reside in reason and learning: our realization that there is no rational basis for giving ourselves moral privilege over those who belong to other groups.“

— Jerry Coyne, book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), pp. 170-171

Women, Learning, Change

„Come on, readers, give me one example of a question that religion has answered to everyone’s satisfaction—one example of a “truth” found in religion’s quest for truth.“

— Jerry Coyne

" Do both science and faith produce truth? http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/do-both-science-and-faith-produce-truth/" August 11, 2012

Truth, Religion, Question

„Any “knowledge” incapable of being revised with advances in data and human thinking does not deserve the name of knowledge.“

— Jerry Coyne, book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 28

Knowledge, Thinking

„Even more than religious belief, acceptance or denial of evolution is a test of character. For if you deny evolution is true, you are either pandering to the public even though you know better (showing that you’re ambitious but lack character), are truly ignorant of the facts (which means you can’t be trusted to be informed about crucial issues), or are a flat-out creationist“

— Jerry Coyne

showing that you’re batshit crazy
" Lying and/or ignorant Republican candidates still refuse to accept evolution https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/05/07/lying-andor-ignorant-republican-candidates-still-refuse-to-accept-evolution/" May 7, 2015

„A world that is faithless would not be without the arts, either. Those don’t rest on faith, so imaginative art, literature, and music would still be with us. Too, we would retain justice, law, and compassion, perhaps in even greater measure than now, for our judgment wouldn’t be warped by adherence to unevidenced divine strictures.“

— Jerry Coyne, book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 261

World, Faith, Justice, Law

„We needn’t take things like reasoning on faith. We use reason because it works. And science isn’t really based on axioms: it’s not math. It’s based on a method that, refined over time, leads us to widely accepted facts about the universe: the facts that we can rely on to do things like establish the genealogy of species, cure disease, and land probes on comets. You can’t accomplish such things through prayer.“

— Jerry Coyne

" The TLS on Plantinga and me https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/the-tls-on-plantinga-and-i/" May 3, 2017

Disease, Faith, Universe, Science

„The methodological conflicts between science and religion cannot be brokered, for faith has no reliable way to find truth.“

— Jerry Coyne, book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 89

Truth, Faith, Religion, Way

„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 not academic freedom, but dereliction of duty.“

— Jerry Coyne

" More creationism sneaks into public schools http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/more-creationism-sneaks-into-public-schools/" April 29, 2013

History, Freedom, Teachers

„Indeed, secular morality, which is not twisted by adherence to the supposed commands of a god, is superior to most “religious” morality.“

— Jerry Coyne, book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 261

God

„No reputable theologian, or rational believer for that matter, adheres strictly to Biblical morality. As everyone knows, believers pick and choose their morality from a smorgasbord of divine commands, both good and bad, in scripture. And doing that shows that you have a sense of right and wrong that doesn’t come from the Bible or God. Ergo, it comes from evolution and culture.“

— Jerry Coyne

" Where does morality come from? A demonstration with monkeys http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/where-does-morality-come-from-a-demonstration-with-monkeys/" August 7, 2012

God, Sense

„That doesn’t mean that the religious completely abjure evidence. If it supports their preconceptions, they’ll accept it.“

— Jerry Coyne, book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 152

Support

„Theology is the post hoc rationalization of what you want to believe.“

— Jerry Coyne

" Quote of the week: William James on theology http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/06/04/quote-of-the-week-william-james-on-theology/" June 4, 2012

„You can find some religions without creationism, but you can’t find creationism without religion.“

— Jerry Coyne, book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 61

Religion

„It didn’t take long to realize the futility of using evidence to sell evolution to Americans, for faith led them to discount and reject the facts right before their noses.“

— Jerry Coyne, book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. xiv

Faith