Opus 2025-127: Embrace the Insults

In reading different books dealing with the discoveries of science in biology and physics and how some of the people pushing this research are anti-God in their philosophy, I come across a comment which is supposed to be disparaging, “The God of the gaps“.

You may or may not have heard this phrase.  Like many of the things that people like to throw around in order to stop discussion or to shame people into the silence it has its use, and it’s abuse.  When a God hater uses the term, he is basically saying that you are too stupid or you’re too afraid to look deeper into the questions of nature and you just fall back and say God did it.  I would venture to say that, in spite of my criticism of their attitude and assumptions, they are right.  Often believers in God will refuse to look any further.  Whether that’s out of fear or laziness, I don’t know, but it happens.  It could also be because on some issues we see more clearly and realize that ignorance sometimes knows no humility.  Of course that is a double edged sword.

The God of the gaps problem also is common in science.  It’s called “Theory.”  When I used to teach science, I presented students with the standard for differentiating between fact and theory from a scientific viewpoint.  There are three things that are necessary for something to be a fact scientifically:  It must be observable, it must be measurable, and it must be repeatable.  These are basics of the scientific method.  In order to declare something in fact, he must be able to meet those standards.  If you cannot do it, then it is a theory at best.  It may be a good theory.  It may be a generally reliable theory.  It is still a theory.  As an example of this, I try to introduced the conflict between the concepts of creation and evolution.  I point out the scientifically speaking both of them are theories and not facts because they can’t be repeated, they can’t be observed and they are very difficult to measure.  It doesn’t mean they’re not true.  It just means they are not facts scientifically.

What scientists are doing is falling back on theory to replace real research.  One way they get away with it is to redefine terms.  For instance, you saw my definition of a scientific fact in the previous paragraph.  A theory is basically something which may be valid but has not been proven.  Here is how Francis Collins wiggles around this,

“But over a long period of time, a consistent set of observations sometimes emerges that leads to a new framework of understanding.  That framework is in giving a much more substantive description, and is called a ‘theory’ -  the theory of gravitation, the theory of relativity, or the germ theory, for instance.”, p. 58

You might notice that gravity is still an open question, germ theory was resisted by the medical community for decades and so forth.  Real science is constantly having a “new framework of understanding.”  Settled science doesn’t.

We have a tendency to get worried about the criticism of the pagans.  Use them as stimulants to thinking.  Make them two edged swords.

Collins, Francis S.  The Language of God.  New York:  Free Press, 2006.

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