USAToday, today, in the tradition of Jacques-René Hébert gave a half-page of its not-so-valuable-anymore space to biology professor Jerry Coyne to describe the ways in which science is superior to faith.
Coyne, besides teaching evolution and ecology at the University of Chicago, is an outspoken atheist who believes the religious inhibit the progress of man, a view shared by many men of history like Hébert and Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot.
Coyne’s article is filled with irony.
“Science operates by using evidence and reason. Doubt is prized, authority rejected,” he says.
Unless one questions global warming or, cough, cough, evolution, of course. Don’t you teach evolution and ecology, Jerry? That would make it a double score for irony.
One could also describe as ironic the remarkable ignorance Coyne expresses in the name of enlightenment and reason. “Jews see Jesus as a prophet . . .,” he says. Really? Anything but.
But the most delicious irony is when he says this: “Science and faith are fundamentally incompatible” and, yes, he is right. So when he asserts “we now know that the universe did not require a creator”, which is apparently an appeal to the authority of physicist Stephen Hawkins who recently claimed such a conviction of a thing not seen, Coyne is expressing a blind faith. Such unreflective faith only ruins science by undermining the credibility of those who practice it properly.
Or as Coyne ironically cites physicist Richard Feynman: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”
Francis Bacon, the founder of modern science, addressed the same tired complaints of atheists 400 or so years ago in his essay “Of Atheism.” If Coyne should want to read it it can be found here .
And a final point: Coyne says the Holocaust is something that should make a Christian lose his faith. Hitler, Mengele, and the rest of the Nazis were on your team, Jerry. They wanted to destroy Christianity and they were the ones who accepted evolution . To find what Hitler believed about it do a search at the link for the word “evolution” with a space in front of the “e”.