In his Aug. 22 letter, “Theories alter with new research,” Steve Engard rejects the notion that “science has not explained how life came into being.” He appeals to the “recently published research in Nature Chemistry 2011, out of the University of California, Merced. This is the beginning of how life started and more research needs to be done, but it clearly points to natural processes, not a supernatural being.” (http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v3/n9/pdf/nchem.1108.pdf.)
Appeals to natural processes for life’s origins is an appeal that no intelligent agent (aka “supernatural being”) was involved.
Yet, the study reported that researchers (i.e. intelligent agents) intervened to include the necessary amino acids which enabled the chemical reactions required to make life’s origin plausible. (See also UCMerced blog: http://ucmercednews.blogspot.com/2011/08/uc-merced-professors-coauthors-study.html.)
Only through intelligent intervention was “a plausible route to the building blocks of life” constructed. The claim that life came from non-life via purely naturalistic processes lacks any substantiating scientific evidence. It is based on an a priori commitment to the philosophy of naturalism which excludes, by default, any evidence pointing to intelligent agency.
