Taken in the context of climate change denial, I think Payette was referring to denial of evolution by natural selection, not the origin of life for which science has not yet ruled out divine intervention. Evolution deniers are skeptical that a random process explains the origin of species because they do not understand that natural selection is not random.

While it is true that religion and philosophy have inspired questions worth pursuing with science, there are few if any examples of erroneous knowledge obtained via the scientific method that has later been corrected by religion.
 
Evolution is just one example of science diminishing the gaps in our knowledge where "God did it" is, for some, a satisfactory hypothesis. The church has, understandably, denied and impeded science. See for example Galileo.