[jennyp]

How about simply saying "Nobody really knows how life on Earth began?" They can then suggest various hypotheses, but they should make clear that such things are, and probably always will be, impossible to know with certainty because there are many possible initial conditions that would have yielded, to all detectable accuracy, the same result.

But that's basically what the textbooks do say about the origin of life.

[supercat]

But that's basically what the textbooks do say about the origin of life.

Then where is the controversy?

Scientists can't even tell with certainty how the Pyramids were created a few thousand years ago. How can they claim to know the origin of life?