Re: [asa] Timaeus--ID isn't "god of the gaps"

Hi Randy and friends,

First of all, I echo Allan Harvey's comments. A design argument or inference is not, in principle, a gap-based argument, but ID on the ground is very clearly a God of the gaps movement. Since Timaeus sought to represent ID as an intellectual movement, and to consider the arguments as offered by the best design thinkers, I think we should note Allan's point then turn to what a design argument must imply or entail.

To this end, I would offer (again) Del Ratzsch's treatment of this question. In Science & Its Limits, he argues forcefully against the linkage of design and gaps, and convincingly (IMO) demonstrates that there is no necessary connection between gaps and design. He proposes a thought experiment that goes something like this. Suppose that a meteor storm occurs on the moon, with rocky projectiles raining down on a subset of its surface. After the moondust settles, the newly-formed craters spell out "John 3:16." (Or "Hi mom" or "Buy more Ovaltine" or the script of Ishtar or whatever you think is most funny.) Now further suppose that, using nearly limitless technological resources which enable time travel and other feats of engineering, a massive scientific investigation determines that the origins and trajectories of all of the meteors are perfectly well accounted for by known physical mechanisms, all the way back to the "moment" of the Big Bang. In other words, suppose that the meteor shower presents no explanatory gaps on this side of the Big Bang. Would we conclude, then, that the result of the meteor shower was not the product of design?

While I think that this experiment explains why gaps are not necessary for a design inference, I don't think that this fact can save the specific claim that random mutation cannot drive biological evolution. That argument is a particular type of design inference, I think, which is based not on "gaps" but on probability. If evolution is someday shown to "be within the probabilistic expectations of the laws of nature," this would destroy any argument that claims otherwise, not by filling gaps but by showing that the phenomenon in question is not the kind of weirdly suspicious occurrence that the meteor shower message was. It's a subtle distinction, but I think it's quite important. Behe, in Edge of Evolution, is very clear about this. He does not expect explanatory "gaps" in which miraculous intervention is required for the development of toenails; he claims instead that the natural world created something akin to a "Buy more Ovaltine" message on the moon. The way to evaluate this claim is not, in my opinion, to refer to it as a "god of the gaps" argument or to disparage it for seeking non-natural explanations, but to determine whether the phenomena in question are as outlandishly unexpected as he asserts. (His book fails on this point, and badly.)

Randy, does this get to the question you asked?

Steve Matheson

>>> <SteamDoc@aol.com> 11/02/08 6:07 PM >>>

Randy Isaac wrote:

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Timaeus wrote:
"ID isn't a "God of the gaps" argument".

This assertion continues to be made and I'm trying to understand it. I know many "god of the gaps" criticisms aren't stated well and aren't valid as has been discussed in this thread. But I'm still having difficulty with the heart of this claim. It seems to me that the above assertion can be tested in the following way. If the assertion is true, then the ID argument would remain intact even if all gaps were to be hypothetically closed. In this case, it means that the ID argument would remain valid even if all the mutations and variations occurring in the course of evolution were some day determined to be within the probabilistic expectations of the laws of nature. That is, if none of the steps of the evolutionary process, nor the composite collection of them, meets the criteria of Dembski's explanatory filter, does the ID argument hold? What does the ID argument look like and how does it play out in such an environment of no gaps?

It may well be that ID is a "God of the gaps" argument and the gaps may be valid and the argument may be valid. But I'd like to understand the real nature of the argument.

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Allan replies:

Randy, you may or may not have understood Timaeus correctly, but I think you may have missed the point about what is meant by those of us who accuse the popular ID movement of promoting the "God of the Gaps." This issue is NOT primarily about the effect of gaps, or lack thereof, on "the ID argument." It IS about the effect of gaps, or lack thereof, on belief in God.

Most fundamentally, the "God of the Gaps" fallacy is the assumption (contrary to good Christian theology that affirms God's sovereignty over nature) that lack of gaps entails lack of God. The consequence of this assumption is that "gaps" (preferably scientifically detectable) become theologically necessary in order to preserve the viability of faith. When people say that the ID movement embraces "God of the Gaps" theology, we are (or at least I am) talking about that attitude (exemplified by Phil Johnson, the Discovery Institute, Expelled, and probably 95% of the promotion of ID in churches) that the truth of theism depends on the ID people being right about the "gaps" they think they see.

I think we can get some insight from your hypothetical scenario about gaps getting filled, but with a different following question. The question would be what the response of the ID person would be to a finding that the natural world and its physical history appeared to be gap-free:

1) Give up and become an atheist because the basis for faith had disappeared

OR 2) Say, "Oh, so that's how God did it."

Sometimes Timeaus seemed to be disavowing the God-of-the-Gaps fallacy, seeming to agree that it was wrong to make scientifically detectable "gaps" in natural history a theological necessity. But at other times he seemed to draw a God-of-the-Gaps line in the sand by insisting that orthodox faith required God to have worked in some "direct" ways in creating life. Several of us challenged him on this point, but as I recall he never really dealt with it.

[As an aside, I see parallels in recent postings by James Patterson, who said a couple of times something like "The question is how much God is involved." with regard to distinguishing TE and ID (or RTB) positions. I would submit that this is not the question at all -- that those of us who might fall under the TE label see God every bit as "involved" as he does. The question is HOW God has been involved in natural history, the degree to which God worked via his sovereignty over nature as opposed to more "direct" means. I think the mistake that some make is to assume that for God to work via his tools in nature doesn't really "count" as God's work, that God is more "involved" if God does something "directly."]

So to return to Timaeus' assertion:

"ID isn't a "God of the gaps" argument".

I would say the correct phrasing is that "ID is NOT NECESSARILY a God of the gaps argument". There are some (Mike Gene, for example) who pursue these ideas as interesting questions, possibly with apologetic value, but not as the last stand where theism rises or falls. Unfortunately, it seems the responsible voices are a small minority -- most often "on the ground" ID is the movement that is seeking to show that "Christianity isn't false after all because [biological] evolution isn't true after all" which is a classic example of the "God of the Gaps" error. As I have said before, much of my negative feelings about "ID" are due to the way *most* of the movement advocates this error, or at best does nothing to disavow it.

Allan

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Received on Sun Nov 2 20:37:36 2008