This is a great piece and I have bought the book. I'm expecting that in the decades ahead we will begin to see conferences on the conflict between science and atheism. Research into the question of the origin of life has put atheism to bed as a serious hypothesis, but there are still many common uneducated people who think atheism is a scientifically viable stance, and this perspective can even be found among academi…
This is almost too dumb to respond to, but here goes.
Atheism isn't a hypothesis and never has been. I half-suspect you mean abiogenesis, but even there you'd be dead wrong. Recent research in abiogenesis has continued to make progress and I'd be happy to provide you with some recent citations. As for atheism being "a scientifically viable stance" you sound like you're way overstating the case in the hope that people won't know the difference and will give you really unearned credence. Per Wordnik, in their third definition atheism is "the denial of theism, that is, of the doctrine that the great first cause is a supreme, intelligent, righteous person."
Put in layman's terms, that definition of atheism boils down to disbelief in stories that someone tells you about a supreme creator. Nobody is obligated to listen to or accept somebody else's words, even if they're said at high volume in over a microphone in front of a bunch of people willing to put money in a basket.
Science, on the other hand, is (basically) the "Money talks, bullshit walks" way of trying to filter out the whole host of lies, special pleading, misinformation and plain nonsense that gets bandied about under the "religion" banner.