Well, looking at the number of heavily funded, widely publicized studies that settled issues like this for good, I'd be forced to conclude either... (a) these studies don't exist because no one is funding them or (b) the studies exist and everyone is ignoring them. That I haven't heard of any such study seems like fairly strong Bayesian evidence that, yeah, Manfred is right.
Lots of charlatans spend lots of money advertising diets and health products that don't work. We have a National Institutes of Health that, among other things, funds studies that make more-objective pronouncements on diet and health.
Argue pro or con: It would be a good investment (payback would exceed opportunity cost) for the US government to create a National Institute of Theology, that would fund research into theological questions. For instance:
Everyone, religious and atheist, should be motivated to want the answers to these questions to become widely known.
(Yes, I know this would be politically impractical. Pointing that out is not interesting. What is interesting, is whether such a NIT would be beneficial, supposing it could be made.)