Jerry A. Coyne famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

If the history of science shows us anything, it is that we get nowhere by labeling our ignorance â€œGodâ€.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Ignorance #Shows
Harmonizing religion and science makes you seem like an open-minded and reasonable person, while asserting their incompatibility makes enemies and brands you as â€œmilitant.â€ The reason is clear: religion occupies a privileged place in our society. Attacking it is off-limits, although going after other supernatural or paranormal beliefs like ESP, homeopathy, or political worldviews is not. Accommodationism is not meant to defend science, which can stand on its own, but to show that in some way religion can still make credible claims about the world.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Political #Enemy #Esp
Religion is based on dogma and belief, whereas science is based on doubt and questioning.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Doubt #Religion #Atheism
The biogeographic evidence for evolution is now so powerful that I have never seen a creationist book, article, or lecture that has tried to refute it. Creationists simply pretend that the evidence doesn't exist.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Powerful #Book #Religion
These mysteries about how we evolved should not distract us from the indisputable fact that we did evolve.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Facts #Mystery #Should
We are the one creature to whom natural selection has bequeathed a brain complex enough to comprehend the laws that govern the universe. And we should be proud that we are the only species that has figured how we came to be.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Law #Brain #Proud
You can find religions without creationism, but you never find creationism without religion.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Creationism
We don't have faith in reason; we use reason because, unlike revelation, it produces results and understanding. Even discussing why we should use reason employs reason!
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Understanding #Use #Have Faith
In religion, faith is a virtue. In science, faith is a vice.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Faith #Vices #Virtue
There is no horror, no amount of evil in the world, that a true believer can't rationalize as consistent with a loving God. It's the ultimate way of fooling yourself.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Evil #World #Way
The fact that both Jews and Christians ignore some of God's or Jesus's commands, but scrupulously obey others, is absolute proof that people pick and choose their morality not on the basis of its divine source, but because it comports with some innate morality that they derived from other sources.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Christian #Jesus #People
Faith is a padlock of the mind, and few keys can open it.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Keys #Mind #Padlocks
If the history of science teaches us anything, it is that what conquers our ignorance is research, not giving up and attributing our ignorance to the miraculous work of a creator.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Giving Up #Ignorance #Research
Evolution tells us where we came from, not where we can go.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Evolution #Where We Came
In the end theologians are jealous of science, for they are aware that it has greater authority than do their own ways of finding "truth": dogma, authority, and revelation. Science does find truth, faith does not.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Jealous #Doe #Way
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. The "constructive dialogue" between science and faith is, in reality, a destructive monologue, with science making all the good points, tearing down religion in the process.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Believe #Reality #Two
We now have many of the answers that once eluded Darwin, thanks to two developments that he could not have imagined: continental drift and molecular taxonomy.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Two #Development #Answers
All scientific progress requires a climate of strong skepticism.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Strong #Progress #Climate
Theology is the post hoc rationalization of what you want to believe.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Believe #Want #Theology
Now, science cannot completely exclude the possibility of supernatural explanation. It is possible though very unlikely that our whole world is controlled by elves. But supernatural explanations like these are simply never needed; we manage to understand the natural world just fine using reason and materialism.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#World #Materialism #Reason
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 A. Coyne

#Teacher #Academic Freedom #Holocaust
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

#Forever #Heritage #Way
We humans have many vestigial features proving that we evolved. The most famous is the appendix.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Prove #Humans #Features
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 A. Coyne

#Fables #Faces #Ancient
The battle for evolution seems never-ending. And the battle is part of a wider war, a war between rationality and superstition.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#War #Battle #Superstitions
If you can't think of an observation that could disprove a theory, that theory simply isn't scientific.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Thinking #Theory #Observation
Damn, but science is just a constant feed of cool new facts and theories. Theology doesn't come close.
-- Jerry A. Coyne

#Facts #Theory #Damn

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