[[Denton’s latest book affirms a completely naturalistic history for life, including its beginning.]]
I’m afraid it simply affirms an opinion for those hwo beleived anyways- again, the affirmation is based not on the facts of the evidnece, but the affirmation goes further, beyond the evidence, and bases an opinion- not fact on what the evidence might suggest. In order for Denton to ‘affirm a completely naturalistic history for life’ in light of the absense of factual data, he would need to base his opinion on assumption that common descent is true. Since htere is no way to test whether it is infact true, and since there is no way to make the diffinitive statement basedo n that fact, there is no way one can ‘affirm a naturalistic history’. I’m not sure what or how Denton can make that affirmation. It may be his own opinionated conclusion that there is enough anecdotal evidneces to convince him, but for many, there simply is nowehre near enough, nor is there any biological evidneces ot suggest it- only assumptions of somethign that ‘happened in the past’
We have an entire legal system that imprisons people and even executes people based on opinions about what happened in the past.
Your healthy skepticism is noted, however. I wonder if you apply it to the claims of religion.