I just read Jerry Coyne’s Faith vs. Fact about the incompatibility of religion and science. The arguments will be familiar to anyone who frequents Coyne’s website Why Evolution Is True. The book is a full-throated endorsement of science (broadly construed) as the only way we have of finding out what is true. That “broadly construed” is important to Coyne’s case; it’s not just “scientists” who do science, in his formulation; a plumber does science when he 
makes a hypothesis about why a pipe is leaking, tests the hypothesis, and either confirms or rejects it. That’s the way we achieve truths about plumbing and, Coyne suggests, about anything. Religion (or listening to Beethoven, or reading Shakespeare) can’t tell you why a pipe is leaking, or how the universe began, or what causes malaria.
It also doesn’t help you solve crimes. My novel Where All the Ladders Start is, among other things, about the private eye as scientist. Our hero, Walter Sands, is investigating the disappearance of a cult leader. There are conventional explanations–the guy was murdered, or kidnapped, or just took off on his own. But there is also a religious explanation advanced by many cult members: God loved the guy so much that He assumed him into heaven. Walter is not impressed by the religious explanation, however. He is relentlessly practical: private eyes aren’t interested in miracles; they’re interested in people — in means, motive, and opportunity. So he does what private investigators do: he searches for facts, and eventually he uncovers the non-miraculous truth.
That’s all well and good, but there’s a bit of a twist at the end (in a private eye novel, there’s always a twist at the end). Walter uncovers the truth, but he can’t escape religion’s clutches. Because, he is told, in everything he has done, he has actually been following God’s plan. And he finds himself unable to dispute this, because, really, how can he? How can anyone? If God has a plan, a private eye is not going to uncover it.
(For those not of a certain age, “Just the facts, ma’am” is a catchphrase associated with no-nonsense Sergeant Joe Friday of the 50’s (and 60’s and 70’s) TV show Dragnet. Snopes tells us, though, that the character never says exactly that.)
