Faith Versus Fact Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible

About this book

In his provocative new 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 sees a national climate in which over half of Americans don't believe in evolution (and Congressmen deny global warming), and warns that religious prejudices and strictures in politics, education, medicine, and social policy are on the rise. Extending the bestselling works of Richard Dawson, 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. Any attempt to make religion compatible with science is doomed to fail.

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.

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Biography

Jerry A. Coyne is a professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, where he specializes in evolutionary genetics. His New York Times bestseller, Why Evolution Is True, was one of Newsweek's "50 Books for Our Times" in 2010.