Talk:Jerry Coyne

Added information
I am adding information from a Chicago Maroon article about Jerry Coyne. Suggestions welcome and appreciated! I will be posting additions soon. Alhill42 (talk) 18:44, 8 September 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alhill42 (talk • contribs) 17:55, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Recent Anon Edits
I have reverted a few anon-edit deletions and pointed the editor to this talk page. I hope they can provide appropriate reasons for removing substantiated work from the article. Kyle(talk) 21:47, 2 June 2014 (UTC) ✅

New Draft
I have prepared a new draft of this article and will be posted soon. Reviews are warranted and appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Khamar (talk • contribs) 01:59, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your work. Definitely an improvement. Thanks for mentioning the categories of evidence for Evolution in WEIT. --Javaweb (talk) 04:28, 25 February 2014 (UTC)Javaweb
 * You are welcome. I found some upper case titles and small words which have been corrected (I hope.) Coyne deserves an objective summary; I hope I have achieved that. Kyle(talk) 05:20, 25 February 2014 (UTC) ✅

The Bell Curve
I removed a bit stating that "Professor Coyne is also an opponent of scientific racism, stating that the The Bell Curve was inaccurate in his review of Darwin's Black Box." The source which was used to substantiate this claim cannot support this sentence. All it does is indicate that Professor Coyne most likely does not like the book. It gives no explanation of why he does not like it. The question of whether The Bell Curve is at all an instance of scientific racism is by no means resolved, and to state such a thing amounts to a clear breach of NPOV policy. Szfski (talk) 21:39, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

why?
Why does this guy have an article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.142.227.209 (talk) 05:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Read WP:PROF to see why this subject easily warrants an article. Johnuniq (talk) 06:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC) ✅

Undoing unjustified deletion
Hello.

Recently I commented about criticisms regarding Coyne's advocation of atheism by putting that his views on the field are criticized about people such as William Lane Craig (philosopher). After that, though, Mr. Johnuniq deleted the edition claiming that "this article is about Coyne, not Craig". I would like to advise that I'm now undoing his deletion under the claim that his justification for that is unsificient and, well, simply bad. If we can't talk about revisions of someone's work in his page, than there are a lot of pages in Wikipedia that have extensive material that should be deleted - but its not what is happening, and it seems that it will never happen. More than that, in no way the two lines of text that I wrote are trying somehow to tell something "about Craig"; by the contrary, it's all about Coyne, more specifically about his justification of atheism, and the criticisms he recieved from other people.

If someone has something more to add about this case, please tell me here, but if Johnuniq don't present any better reason for deleting thoose lines or convince me that I'm talking "about Craig" (and if anybody do so), than I think we have good reasons to not aprove Johnuniq's act.

Thank you.

Momergil (talk) 16:22, 28 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Nevertheless, this article is a biography of Coyne, and material here should assist readers wanting information about Coyne. The article says "He claims that religion and science are incompatible", and all readers would immediately understand that this claim is hotly disputed by people with a different outlook. Adding a link to William Lane Craig with a redlink to an article on Craig's website, with a reference that leads to Craig's website does not help this article, and may be regarded as WP:REFSPAM: a promotion of Craig by mentioning him and his website on any possible page. What might be helpful would be a link to an article about the concept of "religion and science", where the views of proponents on both sides would be explored, and where it would be appropriate to include a discussion of Craig with links to his website. Johnuniq (talk) 22:02, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The book "Why Evolution is True"
I think there needs to be more about Prof. Coyne's role as a popular writer and a short outline of the case he makes for evolution. Here is are References for working on the article:

--Javaweb (talk) 02:59, 12 February 2011 (UTC)Javaweb

Link to review
The external link section contains a link to a book review in Intelligent magazine. This review is very uninformative and unstructured. I would like to see justification for its inclusion or it should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.191.247.132 (talk) 16:11, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It says virtually nothing about the book and not much about Coyne. It adds nothing and should probably be removed. AIR corn (talk) 00:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC) ✅

photo: can we please get a better picture of Coyne?
can we please get a better picture of Coyne? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.77.180.51 (talk) 20:07, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Done, replaced photo with one of better quality. -- Fuzheado | Talk 16:14, 11 December 2011 (UTC) ✅

Section on Coyne's support for antipsychiatry?
Coyne, although a critic of pseudoscience in some forms, is a supporter of anti-psychiatry (http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/06/25/is-medical-psychatry-a-scam/), going so far as to claim that "medical psychiatry is largely a scam, a rotten-to-the-core coalition between psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies". How could this best be organized? New section on "criticisms" maybe? EmilKarlsson (talk) 10:14, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Secondary sources to show notability would be needed before this could be added. de Bivort 14:14, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
 * *I agree that secondary sources will be needed; but Coyne is often the subject of secondary commentary. I suspect we will not have to wait very long for substantiation. The question of organization will largely depend upon how secondary sources quote Coyne on this subject. They may choose to focus on the lack of root-cause for depression, lack of controlled studies regarding drug effectiveness, or something else. Kyle(talk) 16:44, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Well 8 years have passed and I'm not sure what "we will not have to wait very long" means. EmilKarlsson himself wrote a rebuttal to Coyne (clearly POV, including some repeated guilt-by-association linkages to HIV denialism, which really only needed to be mentioned once): https://debunkingdenialism.com/2011/06/26/why-jerry-coyne-is-wrong-about-medical-psychiatry/
 * Frankly, I never heard of Coyne until last week but somehow the diversity of subtopics has drawn me into Talk. He doesn't seem to fit into one pigeonhole or other. For example, you might think he was a psychology maverick encouraging new perspectives other than the "scam" viewpoint, but the trade publication Psychiatric Times took him to task for opposing their innovative notion that depression is an evolved adaptation for analysis, which they term Analytical Rumination Hypothesis (ARH): https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/coyne-battles-darwin-many-other-evolutionary-biologistsand-himself
 * Historically, there are cases where a freethinker's views have survived only in the form of mainstream opposition, such as Abu_Bakr_al-Razi so we might only be able to find secondary sources on Coyne that are rebuttals.Martindo (talk) 08:45, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

celebratory article
Sorry... But, as a simple wikipedia reader,I can say that this article seems a little celebratory... On the web I can find so many articles against Coyne's thought even in scientific community. Why on wiki it's not the same? No criticism at all and this is always a bad move for wikipedia. Maybe due to lazy authors. Only my opinion of course
 * Your anonymous opinion is valuable. It is better when not anonymous. I think the comment deserves a reply however. Information regarding living persons is held to a very high standard on Wikipedia. Proper citations, from neutral secondary sources, can easily be added to articles about living persons. Kyle(talk) 17:50, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * My name is Matteo and I'm an italian sociologist. Tnx for your reply.. I hope that people with an interest in the issue can read the talk and improve the Coyne's page (if I will have time I will provide on my own ;))  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.237.42.200 (talk) 17:10, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * You are taking the right first steps Matteo. Starting a conversation on the talk page is a good way to discuss additions to the page and discuss citations for inclusion. Remember to add four '~' to the end of your comment; to automatically sign your reply. I suspect that the controversy you mention above is related to a belief system and not the publication of scientific findings. Can you elaborate on what you feel is missing from the article? Also, I have corrected only the formatting for your previous comment. Kyle(talk) 21:50, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree the article seems biased. In order to achieve balance I have added a short statement about a thoughtful article written by two Phds.Jimjilin (talk) 19:33, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia rules: Neutral point of view should be achieved by balancing the bias in sources based on the weight of the opinion in reliable sources and not by excluding sources that do not conform to the writer's point of view.Jimjilin (talk) 19:33, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure, but you don't do it by pushing your own POV, by stating "misunderstanding the relationship between science and religion" as fact and linking to a primary source. You should be able to achieved balance by finding a secondary source and avoiding a POV statement. Mosmof (talk) 20:27, 7 August 2015 (UTC)


 * And what you posted was a blog post. Can you find a WP:RS on the subject? Say, a mainstream subject-matter news source? Given Coyne's recent book, there should be reviews in respectable sources that address the matter in question - David Gerard (talk) 21:10, 7 August 2015 (UTC)


 * This is a biographical article. It presents the person's work that justifies an article on them. All substantiated arguments against any of Coyne's positions should be mentioned in the appropriate articles on that topic (for example, on Intelligent Design). The demand for a NPOV in biographies is protection against libel, not to balance out opinionated views. @Jimjilin: You can always find two PhDs who have a different opinion about any position ever held. --Arno Matthias (talk) 20:16, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

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Views on neurodiversity movement
I've deleted a sentence in the 'Pseudoscience critic' section about Coyne's views on the neurodiversity movement. He has posted only a single piece on the topic, and it isn't an area that he has any expertise on or notability in. JezGrove (talk) 13:58, 30 January 2022 (UTC)


 * How many pieces are needed? More than the number of times he mentioned Steve Bannon (see Politics and free speech section)? Isn't a comment on neurodiversity more notable than his hobby of feeding ducks (noted in Personal section)? Martindo (talk) 08:28, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Interesting Quote
Looking for consensus on adding this quote somewhere, probably towards the end of the Scientific Work section. Something like "Although adamant in his support for the theory of Evolution, he wrote with a sigh that 'In science's pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics.'" - source Subuey (talk) 23:47, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Primary source. As long as the only one who thinks this is interesting is a Wikipedia user, it is not WP:DUE. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:20, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Two comments, Hob Gadling:
 * 1. It's not a primary source. It's an archive of a 2000 book review published in The New Republic, a reliable secondary source.
 * 2. Regarding your assertion of minimal interest, there are tons of items that start with Wikipedia users being the main people interested (DYK, for example). Why not run it up the flagpole and see who clicks on it? There's no tragedy in using a not-yet-verified quote, along with a tag "source needed" or "unverified". I'm generally inclined NOT to pre-censor new information. We can always delete it after a week if nobody reading it is able to provide a good source.
 * But the real issue is that the reference provided by Subuey lacks the quote entirely, not even a paraphrase. So why mention it? I certainly would NOT support inserting the quote with this totally irrelevant review by Coyne as the source. Martindo (talk) 08:08, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Nothing of that is relevant. When Coyne writes "I think X" and publishes that, it is a primary source about Coyne thinking X. If someone else published a piece writing "Coyne thinks X", that would be a secondary source about Coyne thinking X.
 * Please read WP:OR and WP:PRIMARY. If we added everything which is "not a tragedy", all articles would be full of irrelevant crap. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:10, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:PRIMARY states A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources.
 * This alleged quote is his opinion about the field. I agree that it would be more appropriate on a page about evolutionary biology than his bio page. Anyway, I don't see how we can include it here.
 * In general, though, I hope you agree that even long-term wikipedia editors are not omniscient. Sometimes the only way to find a reliable source is to tag a quote or comment in the article, breathe deep for a few days and relax, then delete if nobody who read the quote (because it was visible for a short period of time) could provide RS. Martindo (talk) 02:29, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree that it would be more appropriate on a page about evolutionary biology than his bio page. Agree with whom? Not with me, since I never said that.
 * I hope you agree that even long-term wikipedia editors are not omniscient What bullshit is this? You could just as well write "I hope you are not an idiot", since anyone who would not agree to wikipedia editors are not omniscient is clearly an idiot.
 * Stop writing irrelevant fluff that misrepresents or insults other users. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:47, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

@martindo The quote is the very first sentence of the sourced article. I would be up for inserting it somewhere on an evolutionary biology page. Subuey (talk) 03:10, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Coyne's Rule
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep21029 This article from 2016 discusses reproductive isolation and notes: ''the large X-effect (also known as “Coyne’s rule” or “large Z-effect”) refers to the disproportionally high impact of X or Z chromosomes, compared to autosomes, in driving hybrid dysfunction '' But I can't find any mention of this notable "rule" here on his bio page. I hope someone familiar with the field can add it.Martindo (talk) 18:20, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Coyne's reactionary views
This article has not kept up with Jerry Coyne's alignment with the far-right. He is obsessed with "woke" - just see his blog: https://whyevolutionistrue.com/?s=woke&orderby=relevance&order=DESC&post_type=post And although he claims to be a liberal and a Democrat, he constantly promotes right-wingers like Bari Weiss, and the racist rag Quillette - both funded by far-right Republicans - Harlan Crow, in the case of Weiss and Peter Thiel, in the case of Quillette. He wrote an op-ed promoting far-right racialist Bo Winegard.

https://skepticalinquirer.org/2023/06/the-ideological-subversion-of-biology/

If none of this is mentioned in the article, it represents a white-washing of Coyne's political views and activities. Nancygerette (talk) 14:41, 5 September 2023 (UTC)


 * As has been pointed out to you elsewhere, you need to provide reliable sources to support these claims. Coyne (justifiably) being critical of "woke" ideology does not change the fact that his political positions are generally left-leaning. It is a common tactic among proponents of these sorts of ideologies to label anyone opposed to them as being "alt-right" or "reactionary". Partofthemachine (talk) 18:30, 7 September 2023 (UTC)