Saturday, July 2, 2016

God of the Gaps Reasoning


"God of the Gaps" is a term that atheists often use to describe the nature of theistic belief in a world where science provides increasingly more natural explanations for things that were once explained by God.  Perhaps the most striking example of natural explanations replacing theistic ones is the origin of animal species.  This was once though to be the work of a divine intelligent creator, but now science has eliminated the need for any "goddidit" explanations.  There is a powerful and elegant explanation that does a much better job of answering some of the tough questions associated with the old theistic theory, such as "why are there so many apparent design flaws that are shared among related species?"  The theist at best can offer only a hand-waving rationalization, while the evolutionist can give a detailed explanation of how these things occur.  And so the natural explanation proves to be superior to the theistic one, which falls by the wayside.  And this is what happens in one field of science after another.  As science progresses, theistic explanations vanish.  Theists who once explained all of nature in terms of godly and supernatural forces are reduced to invoking these explanations for the dwindling number of things that have not yet been fully explained by science.

As scientific knowledge expands into new areas, and more completely fills our understanding of the observable world, the holes or gaps in that knowledge continue to shrink, and along with that, the realm of supernatural explanations is rapidly vanishing too.  Theists cling to those ever-shrinking areas where scientific knowledge is still lacking to hang on to their persistent "goddidit" explanations.  Their God has been reduced to hiding in the dark shadows where empirical knowledge has yet to penetrate.  This God can't reveal itself to human observation, because whenever science examines empirical evidence, the superior explanation for what is observed always turns out to be naturalistic.

This is a matter of considerable embarrassment to theists.  They are well aware that theistic explanations are losing ground to science, and they don't have any good response.  They turn to explanations that emphasize the hidden aspect of God's works.  Instead of claiming that God designed animal species and placed them on the earth as is, they now tout "theistic evolution", which claims that God is still running the show, but in a way that is completely unobservable.  Instead of claiming that God cast fire and brimstone at a sinful city, they say God caused a volcanic eruption by fully natural means under his control.  The problem with explanations like this is the simple fact that nature alone is sufficient to explain these things, and there is no evidence and no reason to add God into the mix. 

Still, they are unwilling to relinquish their deeply-held belief that God is behind it all.  To the theist, everything in the observable world is evidence of God.  That's nice, but if we're talking about what theory provides the best explanation for the things we observe in our world, then invariably, the naturalistic explanation is superior.  Nature is simpler than nature plus God.  And nature without guidance answers more questions satisfactorily than nature with God's intelligent guidance.  Theists need to face up to the fact that the evidence does not point to any kind of supernatural influence in our world.

Theists have asked if there could be any observable evidence that would convince the naturalist that there must be some kind of supernatural influence at work.  The question has been answered many times.  For example, Jerry Coyne said this:
There are so many phenomena that would raise the specter of God or other supernatural forces: faith healers could restore lost vision, the cancers of only good people could go into remission, the dead could return to life, we could find meaningful DNA sequences that could have been placed in our genome only by an intelligent agent, angels could appear in the sky. The fact that no such things have ever been scientifically documented gives us added confidence that we are right to stick with natural explanations for nature. And it explains why so many scientists, who have learned to disregard God as an explanation, have also discarded him as a possibility. - Coyne 
Others have responded in a similar manner.  The common thread in these responses is they they want to see something that is clearly not natural - or to put it another way, something that is clearly supernatural - something that is not consistent with natural laws.  Answers like this are never satisfactory to theists, because they know perfectly well that there are no observable supernatural events, and there never will be.  The evidence we have in our world simply does not support their supernatural beliefs.  And instead of following where the evidence leads, they belittle the naturalist who insists on having evidence to justify belief.  They accuse him of scientism.  They accuse him of being blind to the truth.

In at least one case, the naturalist who wants to see evidence of the supernatural is accused of using god-of-the-gaps reasoning.  Shadow To Light says this about Coyne's answer.  It strikes me as bizarre, but if viewed in a simplistic manner, there is a certain logic to it.  Mikey says that if Coyne could see something that isn't explained by science, and then attributes that to God, then he is guilty of god-of-the-gaps reasoning.  From a scientifically ignorant perspective, that probably sounds like a legitimate complaint.  But the scientific ignoramus doesn't understand the implications of Coyne's request for evidence.

To people who have no genuine appreciation for science, naturalism and theism are just two possible ways of explaining things, and you can pick your choice.  But one is based on comprehensive observable evidence, and the other is based on belief that has no substantial basis in empirical evidence.  People who demand to see evidence of the supernatural before believing it note that everything in the world follows natural laws - everything.  And even though those laws may not be fully known to us, it's still true that everything follows natural laws, without exception.  Objects that have mass are subject to gravity, and that will always be true, even if we don't yet know everything about gravity.  There are no exceptions.

If an ordinary rock starts flying through the air, hovering, and moving through walls without damaging them, there might be three ways of explaining it.  First, there might be a supernatural explanation, where the laws of nature are being violated by some supernatural force.  Second, there might be some technology that is unknown to us that uses the laws of nature in a mysterious way to cause this event.  Third, there might be some as yet unknown law of nature that explains this unusual phenomenon. 

Let us dispense with the latter possibility right away.  The laws of nature describe regularities in the way things work.  This flying rock is not acting in accordance with any kind of regularity.  This is a unique behavior.  No other rock does this, or has ever done this.  It's not compliant with any law of nature - not even one that we have yet to discover, because it doesn't exhibit any kind of regularity.  It would be different if we observed this phenomenon from time to time under certain conditions, but that's not the case.  This event is unique - never, ever seen before, and different from the regular behavior that we always observe.  It is a violation of natural law. 

Let us now dispense with the second possibility.  Sure, there could be some technology that does this, but under the assumption that mankind currently has no such technology, we still can't explain what is observed.  Are there aliens making this happen?  Perhaps, but we don't see them, and we have absolutely no reason to think that alien beings are visiting us.  All we have for evidence is a rock that does strange things, and no device or any observable thing that causes it.

That leaves us with the only remaining possibility that might make sense.  There must be some kind of supernatural influence going on.  And why should we think this is the case?  Because we have evidence.  We have an observable phenomenon that, as best we can tell after eliminating natural explanations, is supernatural.  Will scientists try to find a natural explanation for it?  You bet they will.  But if all such efforts fail, then the only recourse is to explain it as supernatural. 

The fact is that everything in our experience so far has been amenable to a naturalistic explanation.  Everything does behave according to the regularities of nature, and there has never been a single verifiable exception to this.  That's precisely why naturalists believe that naturalism is true.  But theists insist that there are supernatural things, yet they can't show us any evidence of it.  We just need to see evidence for what we believe.  If a frustrated theist like Mikey tells us that our demand to see evidence is just god-of-the-gaps reasoning, he should be reminded that his God of the gaps is not based on any empirical evidence.  It is a God that hides in the shadows, refusing to be seen.  His accusation is nothing more than a child's retort: "I know you are but what am I?"  The gap is between his ears.

15 comments:

  1. B. Prokop, over on Celestial Pilgrimage, has written a posting (dated June 30th) on this very subject.

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    1. ".... defined by the brash and philosophically illiterate New Atheists...."

      Daniel Dennett is philosophically illiterate?
      Sam Harris as well?
      Seriously?

      And to follow that ridiculous claim with this:


      ".... Science without religion can all-too-easily lead to Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and the Gulag."

      Auschwitz was a direct result of christian anti-semitism that was many centuries old. Nazis were lutherens and catholics.
      Hiroshima was a result of japanese religion positing the superiority of the japanese people.
      And the gulag was a result of a religion called communism that abandoned science for ideology.

      Shameful ignorance.

      "...The very beginnings of science were solidly and inextricably grounded in religious faith."

      Only because not professing faith would get one banned, banished or burned for 17 hundred years.


      "....It was necessary for the realization that the universe was an orderly and comprehensible place (a notion that grew directly out of theology and philosophy) to take firm root before scientific inquiry was even possible."

      Nope.
      It was only necessary to realize that there is an "order" (of sorts).
      That observers of different religions, some polytheistic and others pantheistic, saw order, negates your point rather than reinforcing it.

      "...The more we learn about the universe, the more we see the astonishing detail and complexity of its structure, the more we discover its remarkable adherence to regularity and law, the more we appreciate its sheer scale… the more opportunity there is to appreciate the Mind behind it all. The Heavens do indeed declare the Glory. "

      When all you have is a hammer......

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    2. Quite right. You make excellent points. There is much in Bob's post to be criticized.

      For one thing, Bob himself is not philosophically literate. He just parrots what he hears about it.

      Bob mindlessly echoes the old trope about all the atrocities of atheism, and does his best to minimize the atrocities of religion, but he ignores the facts.

      He attributes science to religion, while ignoring the truth that religion has long been the bane of science.

      And his theistic hammer is certainly the only instrument he uses to play the game.

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    3. Sam Harris does have a bachelors in philosophy, so he's almost certainly not philosophically illiterate. I don't think he will be remembered for any great philosophical insights, but B. Prokop and his friends probably don't even have the formal background in philosophy that Harris has. They certainly are far behind Dennett considering he is a philosopher and is an important figure in the philosophy of mind.

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    4. Harris will be remembered for at least making an attempt at defining morality scientifically.

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  2. Bob says:
    No, in reality there is no “God of the Gaps”, but rather a “God of the Filled-in Spaces”. The more we learn about the universe, the more we see the astonishing detail and complexity of its structure, the more we discover its remarkable adherence to regularity and law, the more we appreciate its sheer scale… the more opportunity there is appreciate the Mind behind it all. The Heavens do indeed declare the Glory.

    As I said:
    Still, they are unwilling to relinquish their deeply-held belief that God is behind it all. To the theist, everything in the observable world is evidence of God. That's nice, but if we're talking about what theory provides the best explanation for the things we observe in our world, then invariably, the naturalistic explanation is superior. Nature is simpler than nature plus God. And nature without guidance answers more questions satisfactorily than nature with God's intelligent guidance. Theists need to face up to the fact that the evidence does not point to any kind of supernatural influence in our world.

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    1. It's a "Tails you lose, heads I win" situation. If the universe is huge, then we have evidence for theism. If the universe is small, then we have evidence for theism. For anyone advocating a proposition that allows for anything to be evidence for it, they aren't really advocating a hypothesis at all.

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    2. Before there was science, there were beliefs about what the cosmos was like. And those beliefs were consistent with the religious view. After those beliefs were shown to be wrong, they adopted something more like the scientific view. If it had turned out that the world was just as their religious beliefs had predicted in the first place, that could would give them reason to claim the evidence is on their side. As it is, the God hypothesis fails. As you say, a hypothesis that bends and changes as new information is revealed, but which consistently fails to predict any observation is really not a hypothesis. It is post hoc rationalization.

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  3. you know skeptical I;'m just have to conclude that you just don't care about truth. I have demonstrated two or three areas that totally contradict your arrogant swagger on the last paragraph.


    you say: ""God of the Gaps" is a term that atheists often use to describe the nature of theistic belief in a world where science provides increasingly more natural explanations for things that were once explained by God.


    No it'd not. this statesman make it sound like like any theistic thinking of GOG, It's omly that where there is a gap and the gap casn be filled by science you also seem to to think that the point of belief is to explain things scientifically This is a classic mistake atheists often make.It's not.Scientific explanations do not a priori comlpete with belief in God.

    Perhaps the most striking example of natural explanations replacing theistic ones is the origin of animal species. This was once though to be the work of a divine intelligent creator, but now science has eliminated the need for any "goddidit" explanations. There is a powerful and elegant explanation that does a much better job of answering some of the tough questions associated with the old theistic theory,"

    that's all based upon that same stupid idea that belief in
    god is about answering science. I think you are assuming that belief is about stopping evolution.Most Christians today believe in evolution


    "The fact is that everything in our experience so far has been amenable to a naturalistic explanation."

    that is total bullshit It;s not even valid science It's clear, crap. science doesn't nearly explain everything not e en close. We are just getting started.









    I am going to make a post on this on atheist watch I expect you to go over there to answer it after all I'm over here making comments for you.

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    1. what you have here is what I call the atheist fortress of facts, you think science is about massing a big pile of facts the one with the biggest pile is true, That;snot even scientific.

      come ot atheist watch, a couple of days.

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    2. you also seem to to think that the point of belief is to explain things scientifically This is a classic mistake atheists often make.It's not.Scientific explanations do not a priori comlpete with belief in God.
      - In my opinion, we believe things because belief is what motivates us to some kind of action. If we want our actions to be beneficial, it is helpful to have beliefs that correspond to reality. As an epistemological tool, science is hands-down the best way we have of understanding the reality of our world. The better we understand reality, the greater are our chances of having true beliefs about our world. You can scream and stomp your feet, but religious belief has no basis in reality.

      that's all based upon that same stupid idea that belief in god is about answering science. I think you are assuming that belief is about stopping evolution.Most Christians today believe in evolution
      - I'm not sure that's true. But it doesn't matter. Religion doesn't answer science at all. Science answers religion. Science tells us much more about our world than religion ever did. Even that adoption of evolution by religious believers is not an issue of religion coming up with the right answers. It took science to do that. The only way religion can survive in the face of science is to change their beliefs, and pretend that religion has had it right all along. It wasn't that long ago that ALL Christians were creationists.

      that is total bullshit It;s not even valid science It's clear, crap. science doesn't nearly explain everything not e en close. We are just getting started.
      - Your "just getting started" has been going on for thousands of years. And the best thing you've been able to do in that time is to adopt the scientific answer to various things whenever your own beliefs are shown to be ridiculously naive hokum.

      And finally, it would be nice if you post a link when you want me to reply to something specific. You have so many blogs, I can't keep track of them. Please put the link here.

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    3. im-skepticalJuly 5, 2016 at 7:30 AM
      Joe:you also seem to to think that the point of belief is to explain things scientifically This is a classic mistake atheists often make.It's not.Scientific explanations do not a priori comlpete with belief in God.


      - In my opinion, we believe things because belief is what motivates us to some kind of action. If we want our actions to be beneficial, it is helpful to have beliefs that correspond to reality.

      that doesn't mean they have to explain science there's more kinds of knowledge than science

      As an epistemological tool, science is hands-down the best way we have of understanding the reality of our world.

      Nope depends u[on the questions there are lots of things sscience can't tell us

      The better we understand reality, the greater are our chances of having true beliefs about our world. You can scream and stomp your feet, but religious belief has no basis in reality.

      Joe:that's bullshit, God is real and that means religion uas a basis in reality, you little sciedntisim has trucated realkjity and limited you to one aspect, that's less than stickiness really because you reject all science that doesn't confrm your ideology-any skincare that doesn't support your view you condmen, you do not base your views on science but vice versa

      Joe:
      that's all based upon that same stupid idea that belief in god is about answering science. I think you are assuming that belief is about stopping evolution.Most Christians today believe in evolution

      - I'm not sure that's true. But it doesn't matter.

      Joe:it matters a great deal because it totally distorts the way you examine things

      Religion doesn't answer science at all. Science answers religion. Science tells us much more about our world than religion ever did.

      Joe:you are not listening, science and religion do not compete, they are in disagreement because they don;t answer the same issues, the thing science tells us are more because they are more immediate,that doesn't mean they are more important, they just more accessible. The things religion tells us that science cant are much more important

      Even that adoption of evolution by religious believers is not an issue of religion coming up with the right answers. It took science to do that.

      Joe:that's pretty ignorant, you really don;t know much about the history of science do you modern science was made by Christianity,Darwin was boardly supported by ministers

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    4. part 2

      The only way religion can survive in the face of science is to change their beliefs,

      Joe:why would that be when they don;'t deal with the same things. religion is being contradicted by science only in areas that have been long abandoned by most modern religious sthinkers

      and pretend that religion has had it right all along. It wasn't that long ago that ALL Christians were creationists.

      Joe:that's meankingess it was same space ago that atheists dhad no answer for how loife cae to be, so what>
      get it though your head try to get the concept, you are setting up a criteria that purposely screws to data to-make roguishness look stupid and science look like the victor in an imaginary contest that never happened,you are creating competition there is none, merely to make it look a certain way



      that is total bullshit It;s not even valid science It's clear, crap. science doesn't nearly explain everything not e en close. We are just getting started.

      - Your "just getting started" has been going on for thousands of years. And the best thing you've been able to do in that time is to adopt the scientific answer to various things whenever your own beliefs are shown to be ridiculously naive hokum.

      Joe:get oof the elite bullshit wagon that tries to say you own science, you are not more scientific sciece is no more your province than mine nor is science anti-relkigious it;'s a neutral tool. It's there to be used, if we don't use it you mock and ridicule because we are too stupid to be modern,if we do use it then we are admitting religion is no goods, you are just twisting the issue to create double binds because you have no real understanding of science at all.

      And finally, it would be nice if you post a link when you want me to reply to something specific. You have so many blogs, I can't keep track of them. Please put the link here.

      Joe:I did it says "My7 answer"? iot;s roght after thsi or before iot.

      Reply

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