Coyne quotes several historical and recent writers, particularly Carl Sagan and the philosophers Yonatan Fishman and Maarten Boudry, while adding some examples of his own, to show how the existence of the God of scripture is a testable empirical hypothesis. The Bible’s historical accounts could have been corroborated by archaeology, genetics and philology. It could have contained uncannily prescient truths such as “thou shalt not travel faster than light” or “two strands entwined is the secret of life.” A bright light might appear in the heavens one day and a man clad in white robe and sandals, supported by winged angels, could descend from the sky, give sight to the blind, and resurrect the dead. We might discover that intercessory prayer can restore hearing or re-grow amputated limbs, or that anyone who speaks the Prophet Mohammed’s name in vain is immediately struck down by lightning, while those who pray to Allah five times a day are free from disease and misfortune.
Well, there is that bit in Genesis about "Let there be light," which bears a certain resemblance to something scientists call the Big Bang. And maybe he should read Alexis Carrel's eyewitness account of a cure at Lourdes. Carrel was a well-qualified observer, who would later win the Nobel Prize for medicine for developing vascular suturing techniques.
Coyne rejects the common argument that science itself is based on faith in the validity of reason and the lawfulness of nature. He reiterates the point made by many philosophers that we don’t, in fact, ‘believe’ in reason; we use reason — as does, necessarily, anyone who raises the question of the validity of reason in the first place.Well, why do we use it? Because we trust it — that is, we have faith in it. Moreover, as the aforementioned Alexis Carrel put it, "A few observations and much reasoning lead to error; many observations and a little reasoning to truth."
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