Is There Any Real Difference Between ID and God of the Gaps?

rookiebatman · Post by **rookiebatman** » Mon Feb 16, 2015 10:33 pm

I've been watching debates about origins, and the more I hear creationists argue against evolution, the more I feel like there is no meaningful difference between Intelligent Design and God of the Gaps. When creationists say they have evidence in favor of creationism, what they really mean is things that evolution can't explain. Their arguments are basically just, "this, this and this does conflict with evolution, but does not conflict with creation." They're really just saying that evolution doesn't have answers for everything, and offering that as positive evidence for creationism. But just because we don't have the answers now doesn't mean we never will. I was watching a debate from 1994 where the creationist pointed out that there weren't any examples of mutations causing information to be gained, but there are properly-cited examples of that on TalkOrigins.org from the years and decades after he said that. But if everybody had just been satisfied that God was the final answer, they never would have looked for any other answers, and thus never would've found that real data which was observable and knowable.

The way I interpret the oft-repeated quote that "we cannot allow a divine foot in the door" (often quoted as proof that evolutionists are closed-minded and dogmatic) is that science can't be "solved" by just saying "God did it," because once we accept that as the answer, we will stop looking for answers, even though the real answers might very well be out there for the finding. We'll never be able to observe the moment that life began, but there are a lot of other things that can be observed and tested, which we can only do if we humbly accept that we don't have all the answers (and excusing everything we don't know by saying "God did it" is claiming to know all the answers). I submit that the only "evidence" in favor of creation is really just offering examples of the widely-accepted fact that evolution doesn't have all the answers yet. And that's just God of the Gaps.

So, to put that into question/debate form, can creationists (or proponents of Intelligent Design, if you prefer) explain how supposed evidence in favor of creation/ID is anything more than just pointing out something that evolutionary theory does not have an explanation for yet?

If you can't draw any distinction, then why do you think, with all the things we've learned over the years in science, that now is a good time to just stop trying to get a constantly better understanding of things and just accept that God is the only possible answer for every single thing that we don't satisfactorily understand at this moment right now?

Wootah · Post by **Wootah** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 3:15 am

From talkorigins:Some mutations add information to a genome; some subtract it.

A casual reader might think that information adding mutations are the norm. To my understanding the genes do their absolute best to prevent copy errors and that the vast majority of mutations are harmful.

Especially given the potential mutation rates of lower life forms it seems a fairly reasonable position to doubt evolution could produce us.

Honestly to not doubt it seems suspicious.

But I don't really know much. How many mutations is it claimed it took to produce us?

rookiebatman · Post by **rookiebatman** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 9:38 am

[Replying to post 2 by Wootah]

You seem to be making my point for me. All you're doing is claiming that current evolutionary theory does not explain something.

Wootah · Post by **Wootah** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 2:30 pm

[Replying to post 3 by rookiebatman]

Yeah we agree on that. Evolution is a God of the gaps argument.

DanieltheDragon · Post by **DanieltheDragon** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 2:56 pm

[Replying to post 2 by Wootah]

To my understanding the genes do their absolute best to prevent copy errors and that the vast majority of mutations are harmful.

Genes don't do their absolute best to prevent copy errors*. The system of DNA replication is simply the process in which DNA replicates itself. There is no effort to make perfect copies it just happens that the process involved typically creates identical copies. However, the entire process leaves plenty room for errors to occur.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_replication

*Genes are a groups on a DNA strand they are not responsible for preventing copy errors. They are also not a mechanism for DNA replication.

The idea that the vast majority of mutations are harmful is also false. Mutations are necessary for organisms to adapt to their environments and to develop an immune system. Whenever you get a virus your immune system utilizes the mutation of DNA to adapt to the virus in order to develop an immunity to it.

Additionally mutations allow us to adapt to a change in environment. For example. Nearly 60% of the global population cannot process lactose. However, people of western European decent have had the advantage of being exposed over a long period of time to lactose as a result of raising goats sheep and cattle as we turned from a hunter gathering society to an agricultural one. As a result people of Western European decent represent the vast majority of people who can process Lactose.

Lactose is a great example of human evolution as we can track an environmental change within groups of a species resulting in an adaptation over time.

Honestly if one understands DNA replication I don't see how you can deny evolution.

rookiebatman · Post by **rookiebatman** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 3:02 pm

Wootah wrote: Evolution is a God of the gaps argument.

Okay, it appears that we have two different understandings of what "God of the Gaps" means. What's your understanding of it?

Wootah · Post by **Wootah** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 5:04 pm

[Replying to post 6 by rookiebatman]

When we don't understand a process we say God did it or Zeus or whatever. So we fill in the gaps with an explanation.

Eg: How did birds get wings? God did it.

Some say evolution did it. It seems to parse the same way doesn't it?

rookiebatman · Post by **rookiebatman** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 5:18 pm

Wootah wrote: [Replying to post 6 by rookiebatman]

When we don't understand a process we say God did it or Zeus or whatever. So we fill in the gaps with an explanation.

Eg: How did birds get wings? God did it.

Some say evolution did it. It seems to parse the same way doesn't it?

No, it really doesn't, and it shows a distinct lack of understanding of what evolutionists believe if you think so.

Let me put it this way; if you see a piece of paper, and on it is written a string of numbers, but some of them are erased, so it looks like this:

1, 2, _, 4, 5, 6, _, _, 9, _, 11, 12, _, 14, 15, _, _, 18, _, 20

...Would you say it's a pretty reasonable hypothesis to suggest that the numbers which fit in those blanks were probably 3, 7, 8, 13, 16, 17, and 19? Wouldn't that be a more reasonable, less faith-based conclusion than saying that none of the other numbers existed and 20 is all there ever was? (Well, maybe you'll agree that 18 through 20 are real, but deny the rest.)

That's the evidence of transitional forms, which is the difference between evolution filling in gaps with reasonable hypotheses, and Christians using the gaps to try to throw out the whole thing. If we have an animal whose nostrils are on the top of the head now, and two ancestors of the animal, an older one with the nostrils on the front of its head, and a middle one with the nostrils in the middle, is it unreasonable to pose the hypothesis that the gaps in between those forms (which we do have actual physical skulls of), probably involved a steady progression of the nostrils from the front to the top? I don't think that's anywhere near as unreasonable as claiming that every single one of the transitional forms we know about are all meaningless.

Wootah · Post by **Wootah** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 9:17 pm

[Replying to post 8 by rookiebatman]

That is an argument from design. Only if something is designed can you know what probably goes in the sequence.

FarWanderer · Post by **FarWanderer** » Tue Feb 17, 2015 10:26 pm

Wootah wrote: [Replying to post 6 by rookiebatman]

When we don't understand a process we say God did it or Zeus or whatever. So we fill in the gaps with an explanation.

Eg: How did birds get wings? God did it.

Some say evolution did it. It seems to parse the same way doesn't it?

"Evolution did it" is falsifiable. "God did it" isn't.