Faith Versus Fact

Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible

By: Jerry A. Coyne

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

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 is responding to 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 best-selling works of Richard Dawkins, 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. 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.

©2015 Jerry A. Coyne (P)2015 Tantor

Critic reviews

"[T]his is an important book that deserves an open-minded readership." ( Kirkus)

Wonderfully concise

Engaging and fascinating. Gives many clear, well argued, points on the fundemental differences between religious faith, and the scientific method

An excellent line of thinking.

An excellent compilation of relevant threads related to religion in the modern world. I fully endorse it.

Gets to the heart of it all

Out of all the books on this topic, I would say this is the best book for a fundamentalist to read. It really gets at the heart of what divides religious and scientific epistemology. The author seems to understands the arguments from the perspective of the religious side better than most other popular atheists and that elevates the book. It feels like he really addresses any rebuttals a religious person might have to his arguments.

Well organized and full of good rational ideas

What did you love best about Faith Versus Fact?

A well laid out argument, easy to follow

What did you like best about this story?

Not really a story

How could the performance have been better?

The narrator starts each sentence with a strong clear voice but then ends most sentences with a raspy half whisper that is very irritating. It really distracted from the flow of the book.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Sure

Fact Based but Overflowing with Bias

I'm an atheist by logic, but agnostic emotionally. This book is incredibly informative and interesting, but I feel half of the poignant arguments end in a climax of oversimplified "gotcha" arguments and platitudes and triumphant "here is what a future without religion could look like" phrases that don't serve to persuade the religious as much as help atheists further dig in their heels to their own perspective. If the author truly wants a world without religion and blind faith, they will need to make convincing arguments on the level of the religious - meet them where they're at rather than assuming everyone has the same general base view of morality, rights, respect, knowledge, etc.