Are these the same scientists who argue against allowing criticism of evolutionary theory in government schools?
That statement is incorrect. As I said, this comes up in nearly every thread. Please remember that evolutionary theory is only an attempt to explain the diversity of life, but not the origin of life.
That's news to me. We learned about Miller's experiments and panspermia in gov't school biology in the late '70s. It was included in the unit on evolution. Evolutionary theory is also commonly understood as including explanations for the origin of life. And rightly so, since neither evolutionary theory nor origin of life theory will admit of the possibility of supernatural causality. They're logically related.
I'm sorry, but you're incorrect. The modern synthesis theory (comprised of Darwin's theory of natural selection, Mendel's theory of inheritance, and advances in molecular biology since the description of the DNA molecule by Watson, Crick, and others) does not address origins. Evolution is defined as the change in the frequency of patterns of genes that occur over time in populations of organisms. It does not, it cannot encompass how life began. This may be the common understanding, but as with the common usage of the word theory, it is not technically correct.
...neither evolutionary theory nor origin of life theory will admit of the possibility of supernatural causality.
This is because the supernatural falls outside the realm of scientific investigation. Science is unequipped to address metaphysical questions. It is not a matter of admission. The purpose of science is only to describe the physical world in concrete terms, and to do so in such a way as to produce predicable results.