I recently read a review of a new book that explores the history of the scientific method.  As you may know, it was Francis Bacon, the sixteenth century philosopher and scientist whom historians generally credit with developing what we call the scientific method today.  As Bacon articulated it in his Novum Organum, we ought to examine things inductively, not deductively.  By this, Bacon meant that when a scientist performs an experiment, she should avoid drawing any conclusions before she examines all the evidence.  Put another way, she should not decide in advance what the outcome of the experiment should be.

     Bacon's idea has withstood the test of time, repeatedly:  no credible scientist today would deny the usefulness and, to a point, integrity of his approach to evidence.  Most tellingly, Bacon was not an irreligious person.  He was a devout Anglican who believed fervently in God.  Yet he also believed that we should take nothing for granted, that we should not embrace any idea or theory without evidence.

     Hence, when someone accuses a religious person of having faith without evidence, she is missing the point:  in Bacon's world, faith cannot be faith without evidence.

     As the late British philosopher Anthony Flew, a lifelong atheist who, in his eighties, decided that, after much thought and study, God in fact existed, remarked, "I followed the evidence."