“Why, exactly, are scientists supposed to accord “respect” to a bunch of ancient fables that are not only ludicrous on their face, but motivate so much opposition to science?”

— Jerry Coyne

" Nicholas Wade’s ridiculous prescription for curing creationism http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/nicholas-wades-ridiculous-prescription-for-curing-creationism/" November 28, 2012

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Why, exactly, are scientists supposed to accord “respect” to a bunch of ancient fables that are not only ludicrous on t…" by Jerry Coyne?

Jerry Coyne photo

Jerry Coyne154

American biologist 1949

Related quotes

“If religion and science get along so well, why are so many scientists nonbelievers?”

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

Source: Faith vs. Fact (2015), p. 12

“The progress of science is tremendously disorderly, and the motivations that lead to this progress are tremendously varied, and the reasons why scientists go into science, the personal motivations, are tremendously varied. I have said … that science is a haven for freaks, that people go into science because they are misfits, and that it is a sheltered place where they can spin their own yarn and have recognition, be tolerated and happy, and have approval for it.”

Max Delbrück (1906–1981) biophysicist

Interview with Max Delbruck (1978), p. 87. Oral History Project, California Institute of Technology Archives, Pasadena, California.

“Love is the opposite of power. That's why we fear it so much.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

“I believe that only scientists can understand the universe. It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

Quasar, Quasar, Burning Bright (1978), p. 235
General sources

“You’ll have to excuse our customs and immigration staff: they preach courtesy and respect while demonstrating exactly the opposite.”

Alastair Reynolds book Blue Remembered Earth

Source: Blue Remembered Earth (2012), Chapter 14 (p. 265)

“Here, the supposed Hindu fundamentalists have been abiding by the findings of science, while the so-called secularists have been on the opposite side, the side of dogmatism and obscurantism.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Ayodhya, the Finale (2003)

“Bex shrugged. “You think anybody’s going to listen to a bunch of scientists? No offense. But nobody has so far.””

Stephen Baxter book Evolution

Prologue (p. 6)
Evolution (2002)

“Only in Russia poetry is respected – it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?”

Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938) Russian poet and essayist

Quoted in Nadezhda Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope: A Memoir (1970), ch. 35

“For, you can still be religious and be a scientist at the same time. That is why religion is not the enemy of science.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“If mutual respect does derive from unilateral respect, it does so by opposition.”

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) Swiss psychologist, biologist, logician, philosopher & academic

Source: The Moral Judgment of the Child (1932), Ch. 2 : Adult Constraint and Moral Realism

Related topics