Along with taxes, death is one of the great certainties of life. However, the inevitability of death was not  at all obvious to many intellectuals in the 17th century. Protestants like Francis Bacon believed that the only reason people died was that human nature had been corrupted by Adam’s Fall – if it hadn’t been for the Fall, human beings would have been naturally immortal. But with the emerging science of paleontology in the 19th century, coupled with Darwin’s theory of evolution, the belief that any of our human ancestors were naturally immortal became increasingly implausible. It’s therefore tempting to suppose that the story of Adam’s Fall is a prime example of where faith and science have come into conflict, and from which science has emerged with a resounding victory. There are, however, a couple of reasons for resisting this narrative.