65 Quotes by Jerry A. Coyne

When natural selection is strong, as when an animal or plant colonizes a new environment, evolutionary change can be fast. Once a species becomes well adapted to a stable habitat, evolution often slows down.

What distinguishes knowledge is not certainty but evidence.

If a thing is claimed to exist, and its existence has consequences, then the absence of those consequences is evidence against the existence of the thing.

Each species is a masterpiece of evolution that humanity could not possibly duplicate even if we somehow accomplish the creation of new organisms by genetic engineering. – E. O. Wilson.

I argue that the toolkit of science, based on reason and empirical study, is reliable, while that of religion – including faith, dogma, and revelation – is unreliable and leads to incorrect, untestable, or conflicting conclusions. Indeed, by relying on faith rather than evidence, religion renders itself incapable of finding truth.

This book lays out the main lines of evidence for evolution. For those who oppose Darwinism purely as a matter of faith, no amount of evidence will do – theirs is a belief not based on reason. But for the many who find themselves uncertain, or who accept evolution but are not sure how to argue their case, this volume gives a succinct summary of why modern science recognizes evolution as true.

All of this suggests that lack of religious belief is a side effect of doing science. And as repugnant as that is to many, it’s really no surprise. For some people, at least, science’s habit of requiring evidence for belief, combined with its culture of pervasive doubt and questioning, must often carry over to other aspects of one’s life – including the possibility of religious faith.

Voltaire noted in 1763: “The interest I have in believing in something is not a proof that the something exists.

If Christianity gave rise to science between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, then you could give religion credit for everything that humans devised in that period.