I'm off to bed but just a quick response for now.
Science is founded on a commitment to "Methodological Naturalism". This means that supernatural answers are off-limits.
This has nothing to do with any bias or personal beliefs of individual scientists. Even christians who are scientists begin with the working assumption that there are unguided, naturalistic causes for the phenomena they investigate. That is what it means to do science as opposed to theology.
Please note that "methodological naturalism" is not the same as "ontological naturalism". The former is a practical working assumption, the other is a philosophical position. Christians working in science all commit to the former.
As soon as a scientist does what Kate has done in this thread they cease to do science. It amounts to an intellectually lazy surrender to superstition. Further progress becomes impossible. Even Isaac Newton compromised on methodological naturalism when he was unable to work out why all planets revolve on the same plane around the sun and declared that god-did-it.
From the time it was first discovered that some molecules were either "left handed" or "right handed", and that all the amino acids in living things were only of one sort, it has been a matter of considerable mystery why this should be so.
Creationists lazily and dishonestly declared that god did it. This was one of the arguments in the old Creation Book. I have never understood why it should be a sign of divine guidance but it was certainly an interesting puzzle.
In 1995 Kenso Soai was able to solve the mystery. He showed that the situation where all the molecules are of just one sort is exactly what happens under natural conditions.
I will post a thread on it in my Evolution is a Fact" series later but here is a very brief summary of the facts.
The key to Soai's discovery was the fact that the process that produces the molecules in question are "autocatalytic".
Molecules often need a bit of help to get together. The matchmakers are called catalysts. Imagine the result though if the end product ALSO has the right properties to catalyse more molecules. Each generation not only produces more end product but also more catalysts to facilitate even more reactions.
The result is exponential growth.
If there is a very small difference in the balance of the right and left types of molecule in the early stage of the process then that difference also grows exponentially. When both types are competing for resources one will win the contest by orders of magnitude.
Soai demonstrated exactly this outcome in his lab. It was one the great experiments of science.
It is not the burden of anybody to show that any process could NOT be guided by a supernatural source. That is a fool's errand. It is the task of science to show that it is entirely possible for unguided naturalistic processes to accomplish each task. The puzzle of why the stuff of living things is all made of left-handed molecules is now no more of a mystery than the path of the planets.
