Faith Versus Fact

Zusatztext 73368443 Informationen zum Autor Jerry A. Coyne is professor emeritus at the University of Chicago in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, where he specialized in evolutionary genetics. His New York Times bestseller, Why Evolution Is True, was one of Newsweek 's 50 Books for Our Times in 2010. Klappentext "A superbly argued book." -Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion The New York Times bestselling author of Why Evolution is True explains why any attempt to make religion compatible with science is doomed to fail In this provocative book, evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne lays out in clear, dispassionate detail why the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion-including faith, dogma, and revelation-leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions. Coyne is responding to a national climate in which more than half of Americans don't believe in evolution, members of Congress deny global warming, and long-conquered childhood diseases are reappearing because of religious objections to inoculation, and he warns that religious prejudices in politics, education, medicine, and social policy are on the rise. Extending the bestselling works of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, he demolishes the claims of religion to provide verifiable "truth" by subjecting those claims to the same tests we use to establish truth in science. Coyne irrefutably demonstrates the grave harm-to individuals and to our planet-in mistaking faith for fact in making the most important decisions about the world we live in. Praise for Faith Versus Fact: "A profound and lovely book . . . showing that the honest doubts of science are better . . . than the false certainties of religion." -Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith PREFACE The Genesis of This Book Neil deGrasse Tyson In February 2013, I debated a young Lutheran theologian on a hot-button topic: Are science and religion compatible? The site was the historic Circular Congregational Church in Charleston, South Carolina, one of the oldest churches in the American South. After both of us gave our twenty-minute spiels (she argued yes, while I said no), we were asked to sum up our views in a single sentence. I can't remember my own précis, but I clearly recall the theologian's words: We must always remember that faith is a gift. This was one of those l'esprit d'escalier, or wit of the staircase, moments, when you come up with the perfect responsebut only well after the opportunity has passed. For shortly after the debate was over, I not only remembered that Gift is the German word for poison, but saw clearly that the theologian's parting words undercut her very thesis that science and religion are compatible. Whatever I actually said, what I should have said was this: Faith may be a gift in religion, but in science it's poison, for faith is no way to find truth. This book gives me a chance to say that now. It is about the different ways that science and religion regard faith, ways that make them incompatible for discovering what's true about our universe. My thesis is that religion and science compete in many ways to describe realitythey both make existence claims about what is realbut use different tools to meet this goal. And I argue that the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religionincluding faith, dogma, and revelationis unreliable and leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions. Indeed, by relying on faith rather than evidence, religion renders itself incapable of finding truth. I maintain, thenand here I diverge from the many accommodationists who see religion and science, if not harmonious or complementary, at least as no...

ldquo;Timely and important. Jerry Coyne expertly exposes the incoherence of the increasingly popular belief that you can have it both ways: that God (or something God-ish, God-like, or God-oid) sort-of exists; that miracles kind-of happen; and that the truthiness of dogma is somewhat-a-little-bit-more-or-less-who’s-to-say-it-isn’t like the truths of science and reason.”
—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard University; author of The Better Angels of Our Nature

“[N]one make 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.”—Ray Olson, Booklist (starred review)

“An important book that deserves an open-minded readership.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Many people are confused about science—about what it is, how it is practiced, and why it is the most powerful method for understanding ourselves and the universe that our species has ever devised. In Faith vs. Fact, Coyne has written a wonderful primer on what it means to think scientifically, showing that the honest doubts of science are better—and more noble—than the false certainties of religion. This is a profound and lovely book. It should be required reading at every college on earth.”
—Sam Harris, author of  The End of Faith, The Moral Landscape, and Waking Up
 
“The distinguished geneticist Jerry Coyne trains his formidable intellectual firepower on religious faith, and it’s hard to see how any reasonable person can resist the conclusions of his superbly argued book. Though religion will live on in the minds of the unlettered, in educated circles faith is entering its death throes. Symptomatic of its terminal desperation are the ‘apophatic’ pretensions of ‘sophisticated theologians,’ for whose empty obscurantism Coyne reserves his most devastating sallies. Read this book and recommend it to two friends.”
—Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion 

Praise for Why Evolution is True

“Outstandingly good . . . Coyne’s knowledge of evolutionary biology is prodigious, his deployment of it as masterful as his touch is light.”
—Richard Dawkins, The Times Literary Supplement

“Coyne is as graceful a stylist and as clear a scientific explainer as Darwin himself (no mean feat) . . . one of the best single-volume introductions to evolutionary theory ever.”
—Wired

“The joy Coyne takes in his work is evident on every page, whether he’s offering a bone-by-bone analysis of how dinosaurs evolved into birds or describing how docile Japanese honeybees have come up with their particularly incendiary defense against marauding giant hornets.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“[Coyne] makes an unassailable case.”
—New York Times

“In nine crisp chapters . . . the respected evolutionary biologist lays out an airtight case that Earth is unspeakably old and that new species evolve from previous ones.”
—Boston Globe

“Coyne’s book is the best general explication of evolution that I know of and deserves its success as a best seller.”
—R.C. Lewontin, New York Review of Books

“I recommend that Mr. Coyne’s insightful and withering assessment of evolutionary studies of human psychology and behavior be taped to the bathroom mirrors of all those (perhaps especially journalists) inclined to be swept into excited announcements of What Evolution Shows About Us.”
—Philip Kitcher, The Wall Street Journal

“With logic and clarity, Coyne presents the vast trove of scientific evidence that supports Darwin's theory.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“It’s always a pleasure to tell people about a wonderful book, especially when the subject of the book is of universal and c…