The God-of-the-Gaps (hereafter GOTG) philosophy is one that disputes the scientific claim that naturalistic explanations suffice for all natural phenomena. Given the difficulty in defining non-natural explanations, as well as the lack of an outline of the methodology necessary to utilize them, GOTG employs a two-pronged tactic against naturalism. This consists of searching for an area in which naturalistic explanations are the most tentative, then redefining that tentativity as
a priori proof of naturalism’s insufficiency. If the supposed gap itself is filled by evidence from further research into the phenomenon, we may be excused for thinking this refutes the philosophical basis of GOTG itself. However, the adherents of the philosphy deny this, and merely move on to the next gap.
In 1992, a research biochemist from Lehigh University published a manifesto in an attempt to discredit what he considered Darwinist dogma. In a paper entitled
Experimental Support for Regarding Functional Classes of Proteins to be Highly Isolated from Each Other, Michael Behe drew the battle lines thus:
I will use the term "believer" for those who believe in the universal application of natural law and the term "skeptic" for those who doubt it.
Throughout this paper (also delivered at a symposium on natural law), Behe derided the believer in the sufficiency of natural law, as if such a person has nothing more than conjecture to support his belief. Though Behe sided with those ‘skeptics’ that contend that natural laws have at some points been superseded by a supernatural agency, at no point in his presentation did he provide an example of such miraculous intervention. All he did was point out the gaps in naturalistic knowledge and leave the reader to draw his intended conclusion.
For this alone it would have been a failure for Behe and his God-of-the-Gaps science. Unfortunately for Behe, his attack on evolutionary dogmatism picked a gap that would soon be filled. In 1992, the Zeuglodon fossil was the sole link between land and sea mammals, and it was Behe’s opinion that this fossil was not much different than a modern whale. Behe (a biochemist, remember, not a paleontologist) claimed, Finally, and most glaringly obvious, if random evolution is true there must have been a large number of transitional forms between the mesonychid and the ancient whale: Where are they? In the following two years, Hans Thewissen answered this question by unearthing numerous fossils of six different families of Eocene cetaceans.
Note that Behe did not claim that the gap exists due to a definable weakness in naturalistic methodology. In fact, he derived the validity of his conclusion from the gap itself. This is central to the notion of GOTG, and the reason it is essentially anti-scientific. The definition of naturalism’s insufficiency is irrelevant. The gap itself is enough to support the inference of supernatural agency. The gap's being filled does not falsify GOTG methodology, it merely means that another gap must be sought out to validate the inference.
Behe made sure he would not be caught out again so easily, and stuck to his chosen discipline for his next GOTG manifesto.
Darwin’s Black Box has been discussed so widely and exhaustively that there’s no need to detail its claims against the Darwinian orthodoxy again. As a primer on GOTG, however, it is exemplary. Knowing that the evolution of an organ such as the eye is no longer widely debated, Behe chose instead to debate the biochemistry of vision itself. Knowing full well that such biochemical wonders as the hemoglobin molecule are fine examples of molecular evolution, he searched exhaustively for ‘molecular machines’ whose evolutionary pathways were still highly speculative, like the bacterial flagellum. Most notably, he used the notion of ‘irreducible complexity’ as the lynchpin for his GOTG argument.
However, as I’ve noted, the reasoning behind any GOTG argument is irrelevant. One merely argues that naturalism cannot account for phenomena displaying attribute
a, and that is taken as given by the GOTG adherents. The problem is that we’re never told what it is about attribute
a that immediately distinguishes it from any other attribute we could use as an argument against the sufficiency of natural processes. Paley used the intricate workings of nature as evidence of supernatural design. Behe uses irreducible complexity, and his Discovery Institute cohort Dembski uses complex specified information. It’s clear that providing naturalistic explanations for the evolution of attribute
a would not falsify the notion of GOTG, only the validity of using attribute
a for the argument itself. It remains to be seen why naturalism is insufficient in explaining natural phenomena, or whether Behe and the intelligent design creationists are capable of providing the explanation so sorely lacking in naturalistic methodology.
The dark nursery of evolution is very dark indeed.
Brad McFall
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