\u2026who happens to be an atheist.<\/a> Jerry Coyne is apparently a P.Z. Myers understudy who likes to imagine that volume supplies for deficiencies in content. In addition to barking meaningless things like \u201cScience wins over religion because science works!\u201d (Works at what? What is \u201creligion\u201d? It usually means \u201cChristianity\u201d when used by an Evangelical Atheist but it covers an awful lot of ground and some definitions are in order. What \u201cwork\u201d is science doing that \u201creligion\u201d does not do? Is that the only sort of \u201cwork\u201d in the universe? If I need somebody to answer \u201cWhy is there anything?\u201d or \u201cWhat do I tell my suicidal friend who feels life is meaningless?\u201d does Coyne\u2019s vision of science \u201cwork\u201d here? Does \u201cworking\u201d constitute the sole raison d\u2019etre for a thing? Does the Mona Lisa or Bach\u2019s St. Matthew Passion \u201cwork\u201d? If not, should we burn them?)<\/p>\nIn addition, Coyne seems to want to have his cake and eat it. When science adjusts its paradigm to include new data, we are to celebrate the glorious achievement of science\u2019s ability to cope with new information. When theology does exactly the same thing (because it is, you know, a science) Coyne declares theologians to be ad hoc liars who are making it up as they go along. What is virtue in one science is denigrated as a lie in another science. The common denominator in all this is the Coyne who flips out and declares, \u201cHeads I win. Tails you lose.\u201d<\/p>\n