Books

Short works

Books : reviews

Jerry A. Coyne, H. Allen Orr.
Speciation.
Sinauer Associates. 2004

Jerry A. Coyne.
Why Evolution is True.
OUP. 2009

Jerry A. Coyne.
Faith vs. Fact: why science and religion are incompatible.
Penguin. 2015

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. Religious prejudices in politics, education, medicine, and social policy are on the rise. Extending the bestselling works of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Bennett, and Christopher Hitchens, Coyne 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 when making the most important decisions about the world we live in.