Faith Versus Fact

March 23, 2015
Coyne (Why Evolution Is True), an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago, defines his position perfectly clearly: “Religion is but a single brand of superstition..., but it is the most widespread and harmful form of superstition.” From this starting point, he describes the nature of scientific investigation, focusing on its reliance on evidence and the tentativeness of its conclusions, and contrasts it with religion’s reliance on faith. Religions, Coyne argues, “make explicit claims about reality,” which “must, like all claims about reality, be defended with a combination of evidence and reason.” He builds a strong case that no such evidence exists for the claims he describes, discussing ways in which religious doctrines have negatively affected public policy and scientific advances in areas such as vaccinations and stem cell research. Though interesting, Coyne’s overarching conclusion—that science and religion must be incompatible—is not persuasively articulated on a number of grounds, and he suffers from the same kinds of poor sociological thinking as his “New Atheist” peers, mistaking problems of politics for those of religious belief. By equating virtually all religious believers with fundamentalists, Coyne draws far too narrow a picture of religion, demonstrating science’s incompatibility with one part of the religious spectrum but not across all of it.

March 15, 2015
A scientist assails superstition and irrationality.After evolutionary biologist Coyne (Ecology and Evolution/Univ. of Chicago; Why Evolution Is True, 2009, etc.) published a widely read book presenting evidence for evolution, he was astonished to find that "the proportion of creationists in America didn't budge," hovering between 40 and 46 percent. Faith, he concluded, "led them to discount and reject the facts right before their noses." In his latest book, the author takes on the problem of faith directly, arguing that "understanding reality...is best achieved using the tools of science, and is never achieved using the methods of faith." Although he makes a clear and cogent argument, he may find that, once again, he is preaching to his own choir. Coyne defines science "as a collection of methods" yielding knowledge that can be rejected or confirmed through testing. Religion derives its authority from belief in "a god, gods, or similar superhuman power." Coyne focuses on religions "that make empirical claims about the existence of a deity, the nature of that deity, and how it interacts with the world," in particular Judaism, Islam, and especially Christianity. Discounting the efforts of accommodationists, who strive to find common ground between science and religion, Coyne asserts that the two are incompatible "because they have different methods of getting knowledge about reality, different ways of assessing the reliability of that knowledge, and, in the end, arrive at conflicting conclusions about the universe." He notes that evolutionary biology is a special focus of incredulity or outright attack by the faithful, but he sees that other areas as well-e.g., stem cell research, vaccination, euthanasia, homosexuality, and global warming-have been undermined by religious claims. Coyne celebrates a world without faith, claiming that there would be no loss of compassion and morality, only of pseudoscientific thought that can "do real damage to our species and our planet." Deeply religious readers may not even pick it up, but this is an important book that deserves an open-minded readership.

Starred review from May 1, 2015
To advocates of dialogue between science and religion, evolutionary geneticist Coyne, author of the definitive Why Evolution Is True (2009), counterproposes a monologueone in which science does all the talking and religion the listening. Religion has nothing to contribute to science, for its modus operandi, faith, is useless for the ascertainment of facts. Indeed, at least since Galileo, religion has often obstructed science and denied material reality; witness today's campaigns against evolution, vaccination, and stem-cell research. Religion's claims to be another way of amassing knowledge are specious, for it seeks metaphysical certainties, not the testable, possibly falsifiable, physical proofs of science. Coyne is especially concerned to show how accommodation with religion, such as the late Stephen Jay Gould proposed, is impossible and that his professed-believer colleagues are self-contradictory, at best. Rejections of religion as a way to discover truth seem legion these days, what with New Atheists, the likes of Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and the late Christopher Hitchens, regularly lording it over the nonfiction best-seller lists. But none of them makes the case for the final divorce of religion and science, with permanent restraining orders against harassment and stalking of science by religion, better than Coyne.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)