There is a kind of structured, dogmatic religion promoted by religious organizations, in which belief is required of the members. That is the kind of religion that is in conflict with science.

There is a religion of the heart, such as expressed by Einstein, that is not at all in conflict with science, but which forms an underlying motivation for scientific endeavor as well as for life itself.

Apparently Jerry Coyne is speaking of the former. Yet we have this:

“And I’ll define religion as does philosopher Daniel Dennett: “Social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought.” Of course many religions don’t fit that definition...”

If many religions don’t fit that definition, why is he using a definition that he himself says is invalid?
A belief in supernatural agents whose approval is to be sought is certainly not the essence of religion in general.

If Dr. Coyne would limit his criticism to fundamentalist or dogmatic religions I’d feel much better, and if he would equally criticize dogmatic belief in scientism and the unfounded philosophy of materialism I’d feel really much much better.

Since his field is evolutionary science perhaps he will write an article about the ramifications of epigenetics and how traditional beliefs about evolution are wrong.

I concur with the author of the article. There is faith in Science. But is a faith based in understanding the scientific method, that the method is bring carried out correctly and reported correctly. That is why we have peer review.

An example of what I mean by faith. I have taught high school science for 30 years. I cannot realitically split an atom in my classroom. But believing the empirical data available, in the integrity of the researchers and the efficacy of the peer review process, I believe that what we undetstand about the atom is true. I take it on a form of faith that the atom exists and acts as we understand it since I cannot replicate the experiments in my classroom.

Keeping in mind that one of the tenets of the scientific process is that Science is dynamic and changable. As the sophistication and precision of the technology we use to investigate gets better, and allows us to collect data that dugges34ys otherwise.