The God of the Gaps

[Galphanore]

The god of the gaps has always existed, though it is only within the last hundred years that we have labeled it as such. It's easy to spot an argument for a god of the gaps, though it's followers will never admit that it applies to them. All you have to do is listen. Every one of the arguments for this kind of god includes an assumption that there is something we cannot know, or cannot explain. They are often worded convincingly, and always rely on gaps in our scientific understanding of existence.

A perfect example of an argument for the god of the gaps is what has happened to the fundamentalist creationist movement. It began as simply the assumption that everything exists as it exists because that is what god willed, then evolution was found. The creationists noticed a disturbing trend, evolution was being accepted by those around them. So the creationist movement evolved into Creation Science, a small step perhaps, but none the less a necessary one to survive.

The claims of Creation Science were mainly based upon the belief that evolution was completely wrong, and creation scientists set out to try and prove that. They failed rather spectacularly, both in the public mind and in court. In 1925 it was ruled in The Scopes trial that Creation Science was, in fact, not science at all. This did not stop the Creationists though, they are a dogged breed. They continued to try and fight fairly unsuccessfully for the next sixty years till in 1987 the movement evolved another step, into Intelligent Design.

Intelligent Design makes the claim that evolution does indeed happen (the shrinking gap is, by now, obvious to all), but it only happened on a small scale. Evolution, they claim, could not possibly happen in any but the most minor of changes. Yes, micro-evolution is true, they are more then willing to admit in an attempt to distance themselves from their earlier incarnation. Their view, however, is that there are irreducibly complex things within life that prove that it requires a designer. They point to the eye, the bacterial falgellum and other similar things. These, they say, are surely impossible to evolve.

Sadly, for them, this is far from the truth. Even the claim that speciation cannot occur has been shot down by evidence as time goes on. Is it possible there is an unexplainable supernatural cause behind something in one of those many gaps left out there? Of course, but it becomes less and less probable on a near daily basis. Don't think I hate these worshipers of the gap god though, on the contrary, I love them. They are the rich fertilizer in which we young skeptics grow and bloom. So I want to take a moment, as should we all, to thank these Gap Godians, they help science more then they'll ever know.

[QED]

Sorry for the moderator intervention Galphanore, but I see no question for debate here. Do you wish to add one or shall we move your topic into a non-debating forum?

[Galphanore]

Go ahead and move it, I thought this was a non-debate forum when I posted it.