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Round two of debate over the nature of science, faith and God

A lawyer and a scientist continue to debate over the meaning of science and faith.

Another round of letters are exchnaged between our lawyer and our scientist. The discussion, which is a continuation of this post, starts to encapsulate some of the fundamental areas of friction between science and religion. It also shows that this issue can be discussed in a polite way. The first letter, from the scientist, is a direct response to a letter from lawyer Steve Mendesohn. I'll reprint the end of Mendelsohn's letter so you don't have to look to the earlier post:

If I tell you that the Phillies and the Marlins played a complete baseball game yesterday in which the Phillies were leading 14-2 going into the bottom of the ninth inning, you might have enough evidence to "believe" that the Phillies won the game, even if I didn't tell you the final outcome, but you wouldn't know for sure.  Nevertheless, faith is not required to "believe" that there was in fact a winner of that game.

So, too, with abiogenesis.  Scientists might not yet know whether life originated in a reducing or a nonreducing atmosphere, but that does not mean that faith is required to "believe" in abiogenesis, just like faith is not required to "believe" that there was a winner in a baseball game when you don't know for sure who the winner was.  Simple logic will suffice.

Here's her reply:

I'm sorry but the experimental evidence puts the score at maybe 1-0, versus perhaps the Yankees.  That would be a better analogy.

Dr.Elisa Winterstein

And here's his answer back:

Dear Dr. Winterstein,

You are still missing the point.  The issue isn't whether abiogenesis occurs in a reducing or a non-reducing atmosphere; the issue is whether abiogenesis occurs.  I agree that, in the absence of much (or any) evidence, it might take "faith" to "believe" that abiogenesis occurs in, say, a reducing atmosphere.  But that is very different from stating that "faith" is required to "believe" in abiogenesis per se.  (Again, it might take "faith" to "believe" that the Phillies won your proposed game against the Yankees, but it does not take "faith" to "believe" that the game had a winner.)

According to current science, the universe began at the Big Bang without any biological life.  Today, there is biological life.  Ergo, biological life must have had to come from nonliving matter.  Speculating that life arose from a source outside of the Earth and arrived here, for example, on a meteorite simply begs the question.  That life on Earth has come from nonliving matter is irrefutable, whether that abiogenesis occurred here or elsewhere.

Unless, of course, you have another (scientific) explanation as to how we ended up with biological life here on Earth.

Steve Mendelsohn

This goes on for another round of letters, to be posted soon. I'll follow this up with a more detailed column, adding comments from various experts.