A LIBRARIAN’S ORIENTATION
What this book explores
Evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne argues that science and religion conflict not only over particular claims such as creation but over their methods for deciding what is true. He surveys evolution, cosmology, prayer, miracle claims, accommodationist arguments, and attempts to separate religious meaning from empirical fact, contending that faith permits confidence without proportionate evidence while science institutionalizes doubt, testing, and revision.
EDITORIAL NOTE
Why it’s in the Library
Coyne offers one of the clearest contemporary statements of the science–religion conflict model and therefore belongs in any serious map of belief, doubt, and evidence. The book helps travelers identify when a religious assertion becomes empirically testable and why some scientists reject easy declarations of harmony. It is included as a forceful, partisan argument to examine alongside philosophy of science, theology, history, and religious traditions—not as a neutral summary of all scientific or religious thought.
Good starting place if…
You want a sustained case for why a prominent scientist regards religious faith itself, not only creationism, as epistemically incompatible with science.
Know before you begin…
Coyne writes polemically and often treats religion at a high level of generality. Philosophers, historians, theologians, religious naturalists, and scientists dispute his definitions of faith, knowledge, incompatibility, and what science can adjudicate. Methodological naturalism in scientific practice is not automatically the philosophical conclusion that no reality exceeds nature, while a religion’s flexibility under counterevidence can be either interpretive sophistication or evasion. Scientific expertise gives Coyne relevant authority on biology, not final authority over every philosophical, historical, or theological question.