Jerry Coyne is definitely going to Hell, that is if Hell exists, which it probably doesn’t. His new book “Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible” should probably be resubtitled as “Why Religion is Contemptible.” It is a strong, provocative well-reasoned book that makes a very good case that science, being fact-based, is the only way to learn the truth about the world, while religion is faith-based and has no such grounding. He does a great job debunking the beliefs of most religious people, e.g. in the virgin birth, the resurrection, Adam and Eve, the flood, etc. and recounting the horrors religion has unleashed on the world, e.g. opposition to vaccination and modern medicine. However, there are some flaws in the book. First, while he devotes most of the book critiquing Christianity and Islam (and Mormonism, Scientology, etc.), they are easy targets. He says practically nothing about Judaism, which is much less of a dogmatic anti-science religion and much more compatible with science, particularly the dominant Reform variety. And while he decries the “god of the gaps” philosophy, he seems to espouse a similar theory where evolution fills all gaps. All human behavior is conjectured to be the result of evolutionary forces (a la Sociobiology) which no supporting evidence other than fanciful theories about how they are or might have been adaptive. It is too bad that he doesn’t believe, and there isn’t any evidence for, resurrection. Then we could bring Stephen Jay Gould, one of the deities of evolutionary biology, back to life to debate Coyne. That would be a debate worth watching!

The most well-written, concise summary of truths I often see as true, but rarely take time to eloquently write out or explain. I see myself referring to this book into the future, when I will inevitably be asked to explain my confidence in empirical reasoning.

In Faith Versus Fact, Coyne successfully makes the case that science and religion are incompatible. The book is well researched well written. He supports his statements with thirteen pages of notes, fifteen pages of references, and the book contains a table of an index so you can easily revisit your favorite subjects. Like books I’ve read by Dawkins, Sagan, and Hitchens; this is another book I wish I would’ve had access to as a younger person, especially during my religion / science accommodation phase. I’m going to read this again with a highlighter as there is so much good information in this book which I need to remember.

IMO, this is an especially important book for our times as religiosity is creeping in to politics, our public schools, and many other aspects of society where it does not belong. Science and reason are needed more than ever to tackle the problems facing humanity, thoughts and prayers to supernatural entities are just not cutting it. There have been past presidents (GW Bush) and there are currently US politicians in charge of policy making who are creationists / born-again / evangelists who allow their religion to influence their decisions about national policy. Despite the fact that religion as never added anything to our understanding of the natural world and it's the 21st century (for crying out loud!), these decision makers continue to advocate for supernatural myths and misinformation such as intelligent design to be taught in science classes in public schools. Polls have shown that the United States has the lowest acceptance of evolution amongst industrial countries. This is shocking. As Coyne states, “Bit by bit, the list of phenomena that once demanded an explanatory God is being whittled down to nothing. Religion’s response has been to either reject the science (the tactic of fundamentalists) or bend their theology to accommodate it.” Pretty soon the God of the gaps will have no gap to reside in.

The book is divided in to five chapters. In the first chapter, Coyne outlines the problem with with the argument that science and religion can be compatible. In the second chapter, he explains the incompatibility through conflicts of method, outcome, and philosophy. He explains why accommodation fails in the third chapter and takes on the supernatural. This is probably the highlight of the book for me. He finishes the chapter with three test cases of how science disproves religion: Adam & Eve, Mormonism, and Theistic Evolution. Regarding Adam and Eve: modern genetics and DNA disprove the existence of our homo sapiens being created in a sudden act, and without Adam and Eve there is no original sin, and therefore no reason for a savior to die for forgiveness of such. The topic of the fourth chapter is faith striking back against science as its foundations continue to be eroded by scientific discoveries. Finally, the fifth chapter asks the question “why does it matter if science and religion are incompatible?”. Reasons listed include the suppression of scientific research (i.e. stem cells) and vaccinations, opposition to assisted dying, and climate change denialism. Coyne narrows his focus on Christian Science and Jehovah’s Witnesses and includes some specific examples of people were harmed and even killed by adhering to treatment methods approved by religion to treat serious medical conditions rather than seeking professional help through doctors and hospitals.

I found the book to be fascinating and reinforced my belief that science and religion are have no business being friends. I’ll end this with my favorite Ingersoll quote, also featured in the book:
“There is no harmony between religion and science. When science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. Now that science has attained its youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trembling, palsied wreck says to the athlete: “Let us be friends.” It reminds me of the bargain the cock wished to make with the horse: “Let us agree not to step on each other’s feet.”

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and also the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness. The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of tears, the halo of which is religion.
بهترین فصل به نظرم faith strikes back بود

“There is no harmony between religion and science. When science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. Now that science has attained its youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trembling, palsied wreck says to the athlete: “Let us be friends.”” -Robert Ingersoll

If you’ve read Why Evolution Is True then you are already familiar with Jerry Coyne’s phenomenal no-nonsense critique. This is more of the same.

Coyne is analytical, meticulous and thorough. He assumes a certain level of sophistication in his readership, never dumbing-down his analysis even when he is knee deep in philosophical exposition. As such, Faith Verses Fact dismantles religious literalism in a manner that will be incomprehensible (and thus easily dismissible) to anyone who is logically-challenged and/or scientifically-disinclined.

“Religious faith is, precisely because we are still-evolving creatures, ineradicable. It will never die out, or at least not until we get over our fear of death, and of the dark, and of the unknown, and of each other.” -Christopher Hitchens

I read this book to compare it to a couple of Intelligent Design books I've read recently. What surprised me wasn't the things that the two books disagreed on, but the things they actually agree on. Mr. Coyne asserts that ID is scientifically discredited. What reason does he give for that? "While intelligent design creationism does have religious roots, it is those very roots that have discredited it as valid science, for there’s simply no evidence for the claimed intervention of a teleological designer in evolution." There's nothing about the molecular science or basis in Information Theory to discredit it. It's because the people who study it are religious. I think that's called "genetic fallacy."

That's pretty much what ID people say about their critics. People discredit ID because its opponents don't consider anything but methodological naturalism as science. That is an idea that comes from nineteenth-century materialism.

Coyne gives a secular definition of faith which agrees with his view of religion. Science is knowledge based on evidence. Faith is belief based on nothing. It would be hard to disagree with Coyne if such were the case. The sad part is that a lot of religious people would agree with him. The Bible says that faith is based on evidence and can be seen in the actions of those who have it. It also says that faith is tested. To Coyne all religions are the same. Truth doesn't play a part in his understanding of religion.

He says religion is bad because it causes child abuse. He cites a study which says 172 children, infants and fetuses died during a 20 year period due to the refusal of parents to seek medical attention for themselves or their children because of religious beliefs. He says nothing of the more than 20 million children during that same time who were sacrificed by their mothers to the gods of materialism. I'm talking about abortion.

Coyne dismisses cosmological, teleological and morality based arguments for the existence of God. Such arguments are based on a "god of the gaps" according to him. He admits that science doesn't know the answer to these questions, but they are working on it. He has faith that someday these things will be understood. This seems like a science of the gaps.

I listened to this book through an audio-book. The voice was nice and easy to get into to read the text,

An interesting read that highlights the aspects where religion oversteps it boundaries in the real world. While focusing more on theistic religion, it is geared not towards the believers per-say. Rather it is more confirmation to the already convinced reader that religion is incompatible with science. He covers things that is well known in theology like virgin birth and the big bad flood that covered the whole world and rained down for 40 days and 40 nights. It puts faith in its place where it belongs, as a thing that has no back bone.

I greatly enjoyed listening the reasons why to him, the author that is, believes why faith and science are incompatible.

Coyne provides a hopeful antidote to the polarizing nature of the science vs. religion debate, and his careful approach and non-anxious tone make for a lovely read on this important topic. However, Coyne tends to underestimate the mythic nature of religion. Coyne rightly points out that religion makes truth claims, and to the degree that those truth claims are improvable or illogical, they can be rightly challenged or sometimes discarded. But the problem is that so many of religion's truth claims rest not just on factual truth but on mythic, narrative, and psychological truths. Disentangling those isn't as easy as presenting alternative facts, and it isn't helpful to insist otherwise. Nonetheless, I heartily recommend this book to everyone wishing to explore the great science vs. religion debate.

I’m usually extremely reluctant to read books on atheism because many are simply written for atheists who love being told they’re correct. As an atheist, the question I’m regularly asking is, “Can science and religion coexist?”, and that’s why I grabbed this book from Coyne. Fortunately, Coyne’s book was fantastic and not just written in the typical “theists are wrong” sort of way. I really enjoyed it and learned a ton along the way.

I will say that this book took me a while to read because for me, personally, the first half was a bit boring. That’s nothing the author did, either. It just covered topics that bore me to tears like evolutionary biology, but it had parts that definitely piqued my interest. As the book went on, I got hooked and started to binge it because there were much more discussions about the mismatch of religion and science.