Novathecat writes:
“The movie Expelled presents a false “God of the gaps” argument for creationism wherein gaps in our knowledge are filled with “God did it”, instead of the more rational explanation that we have not discovered everything yet needed to fill the gaps in our knowledge.”
I recall an interview in one of Lee Strobel’s books with a particular ID subscriber and one in the scientific business – it may of been Behe, but I can’t remember (as an aside the post characterizing Behe as “anti-science” is a laughable example of the malice this issue elicits – on both sides, to be fair – Behe is a trained scientist – his disagreement is with a specific issue – correct or incorrect, he’s hardly “anti-science”). The quote this interview elicited was interesting and I’ll do my best to paraphrase it. More or less the suggestion was that scientists often find “science in the gaps.”
The irony of the claim is obvious enough. It’s quite natural for scientists to posit naturalistic solutions to the problems they encounter, because science is after all a naturalistic discipline. So, the claim that IDers find “God in the gaps” is fair enough… to a point.
The problem is that where science cannot explain something, there is no guarantee that a naturalistic explanation is the truth. Indeed, it is arguable that even a “plausible” naturalistic explanation or theory is not in any sense falsifiable in the terms of the scientific method until a sufficient body of evidence exists to verify the claim.
This doesn’t mean that there *isn’t* science in the gaps. It simply means that there is a difference between investigating the gaps under the material terms of the discipline of science and assuming that you will *necessarily* find answers that fit that discipline. Indeed, that assumption only degrades the power of the methodology of the discipline to get at factual truths regarding the gaps. “We don’t know,” is a perfectly legitimate scientific answer. “We’re sure it’s a natural explanation, even though we don’t have physical evidence,” is a statement of dogmatic faith. There are plenty of scientists who hold that faith.
None of this discounts evolution or many or even most cosmological theories. As Catholic teaching attests, Christianity (for one, as I am a Christian) and these scientific theories are not incompatible.
Yet, Novathecat’s statement about believing (even in the context of pigeonholing fundamentalism) reveals a conundrum. As a fellow believer (for which I am thankful), Novathecat clearly finds God in at least one gap, be it the source of the Big Bang, the architect of DNA, the arbitrator of the probabilistic elements forming life, or a more direct hand in events.
If we accept that premise, and all believers do to some extent, then which gaps are the ones in which God may be found and which ones are the ones in which science is found?
The answer will almost certainly depend on which gap you are looking at. If God is in one gap however, and it only takes one, then the door is thrown open to the possibility that God is in other gaps.
The point is that if one holds open the possibility of God’s existence, certainly if one is a believer, then the complaint of “finding God in the gaps” becomes a rhetorical exercise that only serves to diminish one’s own faith-based position. ID may be mistaken about the notion of how and where intelligence was applied to the process, but the assumption of God in some gap or gaps is hardly a strong criticism, except perhaps as a procedural matter regarding the application of the scientific method – much akin to crying foul in baseball when a player runs outside the base paths.
It is a correct interpretation of the rules of the discipline, but it doesn’t necessarily explain anything about the truth of the particular situation.
I would add, that an atheistic perspective on the use of the phrase offers no more defense. Complaining about finding God in the gaps is more or less a complaint about finding God, period, and while an atheist or agnostic is perfectly free to do so, the absence of any conclusive evidence regarding God’s non-existence does not improve the implication that science will be found in the gaps a whit. We’re left with an unknown.
Speculation is fine, but the assumptions that accompany the use of “finding God in the gaps” aren’t really as condemning as many people seem to think they are. They are a procedural complaint, not a factual rebuttal.
