But there is an enormous gulf between mere compatibility and explanatory necessity. We invoke the equations of Einstein and Schrödinger, the evolutionary framework of Darwin and Wallace, the double helix of Watson and Crick, and a long list of other scientific achievements not because they are compatible with our observations, which of course they are, but because they provide a powerful, detailed, and predictive explanatory structure for understanding our observations. On this measure, religious doctrines do not register;
