Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Jerry Coyne
182 quotes
“In religion, faith is a virtue. In science, faith is a vice.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: For the love of God...scientists in uproar at £1m religion prize" on independent.co.uk, April 6, 2011
“Theology is the post hoc rationalization of what you want to believe.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of the week: William James on theology" June 4, 2012
“The fact that both Jews and Christians ignore some of God’s or Jesus’s commands, but scrupulously obey others, is absolute proof that people pick and choose their morality not on the basis of its divine source, but because it comports with some innate morality that they derived from other sources.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Biblical morality part 2: Killing non-virgin brides and rebellious kids" June 26, 2012
“It takes a profound hypocrisy to try to reconcile for others things that you can’t reconcile for yourself.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The disingenuous Professor Ruse" July 29, 2012
“No reputable theologian, or rational believer for that matter, adheres strictly to Biblical morality. As everyone knows, believers pick and choose their morality from a smorgasbord of divine commands, both good and bad, in scripture. And doing that shows that you have a sense of right and wrong that doesn’t come from the Bible or God. Ergo, it comes from evolution and culture.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Where does morality come from? A demonstration with monkeys" August 7, 2012
“Religion may be a quest for the truth, but it has no way of finding the truth, or verifying what it claims to find. Our knowledge of what God is like has not advanced one iota over the ideas of the 1500s. And insofar as theological interpretation has changed, it’s done so not as a result of faith’s quest for truth, but of pressure from science and secular morality. Really, can any theologian, philosopher, or scientist tell me anything about God now that we didn’t know 500 years ago? Then ask a scientist what we know now about science that we didn’t know in 1500.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Do both science and faith produce truth?" August 11, 2012
“Come on, readers, give me one example of a question that religion has answered to everyone’s satisfaction—one example of a “truth” found in religion’s quest for truth.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Do both science and faith produce truth?" August 11, 2012
“But this (a listing of illustrations of how the genome can change other than by mutations) doesn’t constitute a crisis—it’s a very interesting finding that shows that variation in a genome can arise by processes other than mutation of an organism’s own DNA. The disposition of that variation still must occur via either natural selection (it can be good or bad) or genetic drift (no effect on fitness). This hasn’t really changed the theory of evolution one iota, though it’s changed our view of where organisms can acquire new genes.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Another philosopher proclaims a nonexistent “crisis” in evolutionary biology" September 7, 2012
“Damn, but science is just a constant feed of cool new facts and theories. Theology doesn’t come close.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A huge water geyser on Saturn’s moon helps make the rings, and a bonus eclipse from Mars" September 17, 2012
“Why, exactly, are scientists supposed to accord “respect” to a bunch of ancient fables that are not only ludicrous on their face, but motivate so much opposition to science?”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Nicholas Wade’s ridiculous prescription for curing creationism" November 28, 2012
“Faith is a padlock of the mind, and few keys can open it.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Don McLeroy leaves creationist comment: evolution can’t explain “biochemical complexity”" January 30, 2013
“In the end theologians are jealous of science, for they are aware that it has greater authority than do their own ways of finding “truth”: dogma, authority, and revelation. Science does find truth, faith does not.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: William Lane Craig defends his ridiculous claim that animals don’t suffer" February 9, 2013
“Can a geology teacher blithely tell his students that the earth is flat, or a European history professor that the Holocaust didn’t happen? That’s not academic freedom, but dereliction of duty.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: More creationism sneaks into public schools" April 29, 2013
“Some believers are fundamentalists about everything, but every believer is a fundamentalist about something.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: An aphorism for atheism" September 3, 2013
“Science has only two things to contribute to religion: an analysis of the evolutionary, cultural, and psychological basis for believing things that aren’t true, and a scientific disproof of some of faith’s claims (e.g., Adam and Eve, the Great Flood). Religion has nothing to contribute to science, and science is best off staying as far away from faith as possible. The “constructive dialogue” between science and faith is, in reality, a destructive monlogue, with science making all the good points, tearing down religion in the process.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tania Lombrozo strokes the faithful at NPR" September 23, 2013
“He is a dissimulator, a back-pedaler, a coward, and a self-serving ignoramus. In other words, he’s a politician.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Another billboard kerfuffle" December 22, 2013
“An “intellectual tradition,” as anyone with two neurons to rub together knows, is not the same thing as evidence. But theologians seem to lack that second neuron.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Believer Michael Robbins exhibits Maru’s Syndrome on The Dish" July 26, 2014
“Since neither Robbins, nor Hart, nor any other Sophisticated Theologian™ or Hipster Poet has produced any evidence for God that would convince someone who wasn’t already a believer or an incipient believer, we needn’t take their claims seriously. The reason people like Robbins sneer at the New Atheists’ call for evidence is because believers don’t have any.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anybody who claims that people don’t cherry-pick their morality from the Bible, choosing that which comports with their extra-Biblical notions of what’s good and bad, is simply blind.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Readers’ beefs of the week" September 13, 2014
“The justification for naturalism is that it works: we have never understood anything about the universe by assuming the supernatural, while assuming naturalism as a working hypothesis has moved our understanding ever forward.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Is atheism irrational? A philosopher says “yes”" October 15, 2014
“Religion claims to help us understand things about the universe, but, unlike science has no way to test or verify its claims. Both science and religion compete to understand reality, but only science has the method to verify its findings, while religion merely buttresses emotional and epistemic commitments made in advance, commitments impervious to evidence.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jeffrey Tayler continues making Salon friendlier to anti-theism" April 13, 2015
“Even more than religious belief, acceptance or denial of evolution is a test of character. For if you deny evolution is true, you are either pandering to the public even though you know better (showing that you’re ambitious but lack character), are truly ignorant of the facts (which means you can’t be trusted to be informed about crucial issues), or are a flat-out creationist (showing that you’re batshit crazy).”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lying and/or ignorant Republican candidates still refuse to accept evolution" May 7, 2015
“Atheism—at least the refusal to accept gods for which there’s no evidence—is a logical outgrowth of science, and explains (at least to me) why, compared to Americans as a whole, scientists are so much more atheistic. If your career depends on establishing your confidence in a phenomenon proportional to the degree of evidence supporting it, then God is a no-go. The climate of doubt that is endemic—and essential—to the scientific enterprise is a true disaster for religion. Religious people know this, and that largely explains the many ways they attack science.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Karl Giberson is still fighting a rearguard battle against Adam and Eve" June 13, 2015
“One child dead because of superstition is one too many.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Vaccination-exemption law makes its way through the California legislature" June 26, 2015
“Postmodernism poisons everything.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A book review claims that there is no conflict between science and religion, but for dumb reasons" August 9, 2015
“I have to say that I find Ali’s argument truly revolting—not just because it’s intellectually weak and actually deceptive, but because it debases the entire realm of university scholarship of which I’m a member. When I see pieces like hers—lame apologetics that are meant from the outset to reinforce an opinion already held—I thank Ceiling Cat that I am a scientist: a member of the guild in which using your scholarship to reinforce emotional commitments is considered a sin.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At last it happens: a professor blames ISIS’s sex slavery on the West" August 23, 2015
“After all, by what lights can you see atheism as a “leap of faith”? What is the “faith” there? Failure to accept gods is no more a leap of faith than is doubting the existence of the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, or Santa Claus. It’s not “faith” when you refuse to accept a proposition for which there’s no evidence.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Self-abasing atheist at the Guardian calls atheism is a “leap of faith”" October 29, 2015
“He is the embodiment of greed, ambition, bigotry, and dislike of the marginalized. Of course, all that means is that he simply instantiates in a clear way the values of the GOP, but they don’t like those being so out in the open! Trump is in fact the very product of what Republicans stand for: he’s a monster they created, but now they don’t like it. They want those values, but expressed sotto voce, and by a slicker candidate.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: It’s going to be a bizarre election year" March 9, 2016
“Theology schools are the wisdom teeth of academia: useless and sometimes injurious remnants of earlier times. If you want to teach comparative religion in college, you can do it in sociology departments, and if you want to teach the history of religion or of how scripture was confected, you can do it in history departments. There is no rationale for a modern secular university to teach theology, for it is the study of a nonexistent being and its supposed wants.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Theology schools are dying" March 19, 2016
“I’m not sure who’s in charge of “The Stone,” the New York Times‘s philosophy column, but that person is not doing their job. Imagine if some of our greatest living philosophers would post there about matters diverse: ethics, animal rights, abortion, drone strikes, and so on. But all too often the column is about God; that is, we have Great Minds lucubrating about nonexistent beings. Among all species of philosophy, the philosophy of religion is the most intellectually depauperate. It’s a waste of time.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Didn’t you know: God’s a question, not an answer!" April 10, 2016
“On the Right we have a bunch of regressive conservatives who demonize minorities and women and have no sympathy for the downtrodden, while on the Left we have regressive Leftists who try to censor people’s speech, take the side of extremist Islamists against women and gays, and shut down disagreement by other Leftists who aren’t pure enough. What is a person to do? The answer, of course, is to call out both sides for regressive behavior.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: More bigotry at Britain’s National Union of Students" July 20, 2016
“Faith is not a virtue, but a character flaw.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ faith" September 14, 2016
“The editorial, very poorly written for a college full of smart students, shows how far this “hate speech” cancer has spread. Let me provide for you Coyne’s Glossary for the words at issue:”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We needn’t take things like reasoning on faith. We use reason because it works. And science isn’t really based on axioms: it’s not math. It’s based on a method that, refined over time, leads us to widely accepted facts about the universe: the facts that we can rely on to do things like establish the genealogy of species, cure disease, and land probes on comets. You can’t accomplish such things through prayer.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The TLS on Plantinga and me" May 3, 2017
“Danger! Mushbrains and believers at work!”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: New Mexico, with input from science and public, doesn’t water down its science standards" October 19, 2017
“The realization that God is not the source of morality is, I think, one of the great contributions of philosophy to clarifying human thought.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Does religion promote morality?" November 28, 2017
“Remember three things about censorship. First, it doesn’t work to suppress art or words that you don’t like. Second, trying to censor something just arouses interest in it, as well as resentment towards those who try to tell others what they can or cannot see. Third, exhibiting art or recommending that students read a book does not mean an endorsement of the image or contents.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: National Coalition Against Censorship and PEN defend Met’s showing of a “controversial” painting" December 9, 2017
“Guilt is the great weapon of the Authoritarian Left, and we must resist it when it comes to endorsing free expression.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: National Coalition Against Censorship and PEN defend Met’s showing of a “controversial” painting" December 9, 2017
“The truth is the truth, regardless of whether it fits your ideological biases.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In an article on race and medicine, New York Times does its best to ignore and denigrate race" December 11, 2017
“If religion makes a society happier, there’s no data to show that. All we see is that on average countries that are well off are less religious and are happier; and that goes for U.S. states as well. Checkmate, religionists.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2018 data: Across countries, the happiest ones are the least religious" March 22, 2018
“If Hawking’s world is “small,” well, at least what he found was testable, and might be true. Father de Souza’s claims are either untestable or have already been shown to be doubtful, and he has no evidence for any of them. In requiring people to believe fairy tales, de Souza’s world is not just small, but nonexistent.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Catholic priest says that Hawking, while smart, didn’t solve the biggest questions of the universe" March 22, 2018
“This implicit denigration of objectivity, and of the way science is done, irritates me immensely. It privileges anecdotes over data, “lived experience” over objective tests, and confirmation bias over uncomfortable truths. But that is the way that many humanities scholars, corrupted by postmodernism, have operated. Denying or denigrating an objective search for truth, they’re free to say whatever they want, or “discover” whatever they find ideologically convenient.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Feminist geography at Dartmouth" April 2, 2018
“What the comedy club in Montreal is doing is not only ridiculous, but is a prime example of virtue signaling: making a gesture to trumpet your own ideological purity, but a gesture that has no effect on society and no mitigation of injustice.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Accusations of cultural appropriation gone wild: Canadian comedy club bars white comedian with dreadlocks" January 16, 2019
“In other words, (Helen) Pluckrose et al. got a lot more attention than I did. And that’s fine. For they did, to my mind, expose a creeping rot in the floorboards of academic humanities, which has becoming increasingly solipsistic, tendentious, propagandistic, and devoid of critical thinking but besotted with intersectionalist ideology.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Campus journalism fracas reaches the New York Times" July 26, 2019
“There is no compromise possible between catering to woke students and maintaining journalistic standards. We all know that this is true. If you feed the beast, it only gets hungrier, and is never full.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The “grievance studies” hoax: a forum at the Chronicle of Higher Education" November 14, 2019
“Safety” and “harm” have become the new buzzwords to use when somebody does something you don’t like.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Harvard students demonstrate at the Crimson’s building, continuing to protest the newspaper’s asking ICE for a comment" November 21, 2019
“Everyone else besides the faithful already knows that religion has nothing useful to say to science.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Science versus religion: Are they “gifts” to each other?" November 29, 2019
“As we know, wokeness prizes ideology and narrative over truth.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The New York Times touts Gwyneth Paltrow and “her other ways of knowing”" November 29, 2019
“Yes, the claim that sex in humans is not a binary is pretty much a lie, and is made on ideological rather than scientific grounds.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A defense of the binary in human sex" February 14, 2020
“This will not abate: wokeness is a one-way ratchet to pure authoritarianism.”
Jerry Coyne (born 1949) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: You are not your name: The Even More Woke New York Times ponders identity erasure" June 25, 2020