Originally posted by mtthw
I think he's talking about "not why the rules of physics are the way they are". Which is true - science is good at working out what the rules are. Why the rules are is probably out of scope.
The creation of life, though, doesn't appear to be in that category. There's no reason to believe that how it can happen is any more mysterious than lots of things that used to be considered mysterious before science explained them.
My response to someone who says a "why" question can't be answered by science is, what would be the earmarks of a good answer? Would it produce a sense of satisfaction? That's a psychological answer. Is it that the answer increases our ability to predict events? That's perhaps a scientific answer, worth revisiting down below, but let's look at the question about why the rules are the way they are.
Analogy time: Lately, a theory of life on other planets is forming around the idea that nearby at least some of the billions of stars, there is a planet in a habitable zone, where liquid H2O can exist and energy is sufficient for chemical reactions that form and not immediately destroy complex molecules, and that's where to look for life. We can predict that if we are to find recognizable life somewhere, it's a good bet to look were the temperature is somewhere between 0 and 100 centigrade at least some of the time. We have one example at hand, where life came about.
Analogously, of all the conceivable universes, there is obviously at least one where the question is eventually asked by some being in that universe, "Why are the rules of the universe the way they are?" We are in one. The rules are the way they are in this universe (meaning there are observable, regular correlations between events) because a universe where that is not the case would not harbor life. We can perhaps speculate about the range of "rules" that make a universe habitable. One of them to speculate on is that conditions have to allow for liquids to exist, like the planetary habitable zone analogy above. But it may be the case where we can't test that prediction unless we can find a way to observe other universes and do in fact observe them.
This is a variation of the Anthropic Principle, the "weak" variation.
One view of reality is that there is an ever-growing "foam" of universes. In some of them, conditions are such that the question is eventually asked. Others are not conducive to the question being asked, so it is "universally" the case that conditions seem "just right" to all beings that evolve to the point where they ask the question.
Is it satisfactory? That's the question. Ask another question: Why is there something rather than nothing? Is the answer the same? Where would the question be asked, other than where there is something? It that answer satisfactory?