Origins of Life Research Does Not Rest on a Mistake

Abstract

Abstract I defend origins of life research against an argument, given by Roger White in 2007, that it rests on a mistake. I show how the Bayesian machinery can illuminate the rational search for alternative explanations of inexplicable, improbable data, and in particular how it can illuminate the rational search for a secular explanation of the origins of life and of the fine-tuning of the universe.