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Positivism and Compartmentalization
No, actually, a recent "study" showed that Biologists tend more than any other type of scientist to be outright atheists. Perhaps because physicists deal with phenomena that are unknowable on some scale, they may tend to seek a prime mover. In that study, actually a survey published in American Scientist, there were a few theists, no deists, and mostly atheists among biologists. Most physicists also described themselves as atheists, but there were some deists and about an equal number of theists.
Biology from a third person perspective doesn't really have any of the cosmological mysteriousness left in it. The spontaneous origin of life from unguided chemical processes is seen as hardly controversial. Evolution is well established as a fact and as a developed theoretical structure. People who don't know any biology might find life mysterious and seek a creator, but their is no need to posit anything like a prime mover for biologists.
It seems like your acquaintance has been well trained in Popper's positivism, and self-trained in compartmentalization. But positivism is long out of fashion in philosophy. The you can't know anything for certain statement is self-refuting, and you'd think a Biologist would know that. Unfortunately, the best way to cure a skeptic is to drive on the wrong side of the road with him as a passenger. The attempted cure may not be worth the results.
As I told you in our last chat session (Plug for the Feature!) there is a lot that Objectivists should learn from science and even more that scientists need from Objectivism.
Ted Keer
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