The Gap Filler

When it comes to scientific issues atheists will generally charge theists of believing in "the God of the gaps." They mean is that they have a perception that theists will always conjure God in order to fill a gap in our knowledge. For example, if we do not have materialistic explanations for how something functions theists say that God did it. Or if a system is complex, or irreducibly complex, theists call in God to fill the gaps.

Part I: In Which the Gap is Filled With Time, Chance and Matter
However, if theists have "the God of the gaps," atheists hold to "the time of the gaps," "the chance of the gaps," or "the materialism of the gaps." It has been justly stated that atheists have a Trinitarian belief in time, matter and chance. Thus, for example, if we do not have naturalistic explanations for how something functions atheists say that given enough time it could happen and given enough time we will surely find out how it happened. Or if a system is complex, or irreducibly complex, atheists call in time to fill the gaps.

In other words, you may argue with an atheist about something such as the intricacies of an information usage, storage, retrieval, and reproducible system such as DNA. You may point out that such as system has never been seen to spontaneously appear in nature, nor gradually develop in nature, nor in laboratories. They will respond that given enough time such a system could develop. Thus, given enough time anything can happen.

They will also conjure a non-disprovable concept that states that since materialism is true, given enough time scientists will, no doubt, be able to explain everything by materialistic means. This means that they feel free to claim that science now means that they can believe in something for which there is no proof because they have faith that someday it will be proven true-in a year, a decade, a century, a millennia, etc.

This sounds like something that they critique theists for believing. A theist could likewise state that since God exists and created everything it will someday be proven-given enough time. Indeed, if theists were only allowed to argue as atheists do we could simply take all of their objections to God's existence and the alleged contradictions in God's personality and simply say, "We do not know enough about that, give us time and we will have all of the answers for you."

In his "Cosmos" episode entitled "One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue," Carl Sagan stated:

The secrets of evolution are time and death. Time for the slow accumulations of favorable mutations, and death to make room for new species.

George Wald wrote:

"Time is, in fact, the hero of the plot…given so much time the 'impossible' becomes possible, the possible probable and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs miracles.1

John Horgan wrote the following in Scientific America:

…Others, while agreeing that all theories have weaknesses, view the ferment more favorably. “I'm excited,” says James P. Ferris, a chemist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and editor of the journal Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere. “We have all sorts of new ingredients in the pot.” Sooner or later, Ferris suggests, a convincing explanation of genesis is bound to come crawling out. Some scientists have argued that, given enough time, even apparently miraculous events become possible-such as spontaneous emergence of a single-cell organism for the random couplings of chemicals. Yet Fred Hoyle, the iconoclastic British astronomer, has said such an occurrence is about as likely as the assemblage of a 747 by a tornado whirling though a junkyard. Most researchers agree with Hoyle on this point.2

Richard Dawkins wrote:

Given infinite time, or infinite opportunities, anything is possible….However improbable a large-scale change may be, smaller changes are less improbable. And provided we postulate a sufficiently large series of sufficiently finely graded intermediates, we shall be able to derive anything from anything else, without invoking astronomical probabilities. We are allowed to do this only if there has been sufficient time to fill all the intermediates in. And also only if there is a mechanism for guiding each step in some particular direction, otherwise the sequence of steps will career off in an endless random walk.3

Part II: In Which the Gap is Filled With Faith and Imagination
Richard Dawkins, provides some interesting observations regarding the concept of faith:4

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.

The patient typically finds himself impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a belief as “faith.”

Yet, these criticism's appear to be applicable only to the faith of those with whom he disagrees. We claim this because Richard Dawkins himself has stated that his adherence to Darwinism is a "matter of faith on my, on my part since the theory is so coherent and so powerful." We will discuss this comment and provide its context in some detail below. For now, it is fascinating to note that he appears to be virtually quoting Charles Darwin (just short of book, chapter and verse) who wrote of "my faith in natural selection," and "the power of natural selection."5

The following quotes, unless specified by additional footnotes, come from an interview of Richard Dawkins by Jonathan Miller.6 Please note that there are ellipses points ("…") written into the transcript of the interview to denote Richard Dawkins' halting way of speaking. Moreover, where we have added ellipses points for the normative purpose, in order to demarcate where we have made the quote succinct, in these cases we have placed the ellipses points within brackets ("[…]").

Jonathan Miller asks Richard Dawkins "to give a summary of the most persuasive version," of Darwinian theory.
Richard Dawkins responds thusly:

First I would make a distinction between the fact of evolution and the actual change from generation to generation that has led from bacterial ancestors to all the creatures we have today by gradual, gradual change such that you wouldn't have noticed it, um, in any particular generation. That is a matter of fact that can be observed - not directly - but by its aftermath in the form of fossils and the pattern of living creatures. Then ask, what is the guiding force for it being like that? Natural selection

What we will attempt is to viably read between the lines in order to ascertain what is actually being stated by Richard Dawkins. We would also like to point out that when discussing evolution it is of the utmost important to define the terminology. For now we will stick to Richard Dawkins' definition which is the weaving of a story about how things could have happened that disproves the existence of God. Here is one example:

Jonathan Miller states, "So when, at the age of 16, you became acquainted with Darwin, was it because you were taught about Darwin, or you began reading The Origin of Species?"
Richard Dawkins responds, "No, it was because I was taught."
"JM: And were you taught by people who, as it were, were aware, or seemed to be aware of the fact that it would have theological consequences?"
"RD: No, I don't think so. I mean…that wasn't the terms in which they put it anyway."
"JM: How soon in the lessons did you begin to see that it did have theological consequences - that it more or less knocked the idea of design on the head?"
"RD: I do remember that I understood the principle of Darwinism before I really believed it was big enough to do the job. So I understood the principle of it and realised that yes, that is a candidate explanation for doing this job but I still don't think it's a big enough one…it was only later that I decided yes - it is big enough."

Richard Dawkins makes reference to the biological "digital code." When asked to discuss the "novelties upon which natural selection exerts its pressures," Richard Dawkins responds:

There's nothing very inventive or ingenious about those novelties. I mean, they are random. And, um, they mostly are deleterious - most mutations are bad. And so you really need to focus on natural selection as the positive side, and it's only natural selection that produces living things that have the illusion of design. The illusion of design does not come from the novelty, it comes from what happens to the novelty as it is filtered through[…]there cannot have been intermediate stages that were not beneficial. It's…there's no room in natural selection for the sort of foresight argument that says, 'Well, if we're going to persist for the next million years it'll start becoming useful.' That doesn't work, there's got to be a selection pressure all the way.

We note that this discussion is focused on living organisms that, obvious, already exist. In other words, we are far away from why there is something instead of nothing and how life came to be in the first place: we already have a digital code-we have an illusion of design. But why call such obvious design an illusion? The design is so obvious that atheists, in the guise of science, have to talk themselves, and their students, into not engaging the issue in an honest and intelligent manner:
Richard Dawkins, "The Blind Watchmaker," p. 1,

Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.

Francis Crick, "What Mad Pursuit," p. 138,

Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.

Thus, the obvious is a digital code, the obvious is design, yet we are to constantly deny the facts and concoct a story that will replace evidence. Beginning with the presupposition that all of life is related "from bacterial ancestors" we must ask how today's diversity came to be. Since the scientific fact is that "most mutations are bad," atheism must find a way to support its presupposition. Thus, we turn to natural selection and recall that "there cannot have been intermediate stages that were not beneficial" because "there's no room in natural selection for the sort of foresight argument." This is because there is no God, no intelligence, guiding the process and because the design that is readily visible is a mere illusion.

Note that Richard Dawkins stated that there is no "foresight" but in Part I of this essay we quoted him as stating that "there is a mechanism for guiding each step in some particular direction." How is it that natural selection has no foresight but does guide in a particular direction? This would imply a long term plan.

Mr. Miller then states, "So there isn't a process as it were going on in the cell saying, 'Look, be patient. It's going to be a feather, believe me.'"
To which Richard Dawkins responds:

Um, there's got to be a series of advantages all the way in the feather. If you can't think of one then that's your problem, not natural selection's problem. Natural selection, um, well, I suppose that is a sort of matter of faith on my, on my part since the theory is so coherent and so powerful. You might mentioned feathers. I mean it's perfectly possible that feathers began as fluffy, um, extensions of reptilian scales to act as heat insulators. And so the final perfection of the sort of, wing feathers that we see in flying birds might have come very much later. And the earliest feathers might have been a different approach to hairiness among reptiles keeping them warm.

By now the point is very clear: since there is no design, no foresight, then there is nothing, or no one, that knows that a change is advantageous and will eventually become something useful in a different way. Thus, "there's got to be a series of advantages all the way." But what are those advantages? Well, you don't know, I don't know and Richard Dawkins doesn't either and "that's your problem." But then how do we know that there were a "series of advantages" that, after all, we "wouldn't have noticed in any particular generation"? Because it simply must be true. Understand very carefully, it must be true because the story that we invented, that does away with God, demands that certain things be true and therefore, they are true by necessity.

Keep in mind that Richard Dawkins, professor of biology and champion apologist for atheism, was asked to offer his most persuasive argument. Now, when it comes to the focal point upon which his argument is premised he states that he is relying on "a sort of matter of faith" because "the theory is so coherent and so powerful." This, as we saw, was Darwin's sentiments virtually word for word and it is also akin to a doxology. The theory, the story, tells me what I want to hear and it is therefore coherent in that it allows me to replace evidence with imagination (or lack thereof, "if you can't think of one then that's your problem") and powerful enough to discard God.

Also, consider Richard Dawkins's answer to the question posed by "Edge The World Question Centre":
"What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?"

I believe that all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all 'design' anywhere in the universe, is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection. It follows that design comes late in the universe, after a period of Darwinian evolution. Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe.

Richard Dawkins has also written:

The theory of the blind watchmaker is extremely powerful given that we are allowed to assume replication and hence cumulative selection. But if replication needs complex machinery, since the only way we know for complex machinery ultimately to come into existence is cumulative selection, we have a problem.7

This time the theory is powerful because it allows us to make advantageous assumptions (even though they may lead to problems).

We have made several references to storytelling and now we get a first hand example. Richard Dawkins does something that is very common to Darwinian evolution, something upon which Darwinian evolution may be premised. Rather than offering evidence he tells us a "just so" story. Did you notice it in the statement above? "…perfectly possible…might have…might have…" "Possible" and "might have" are very far removed from we know and can prove that it happened in this particular manner.

Michael Shermer, editor of "Skeptic" magazine, likewise appealed to the power of imagination in his debate with Jonathan Wells-"Why Darwin Matters," CATO Institute 2006 (video and audio of the debate):

My criticism of intelligent design theory is: at the very moment when it gets really interesting, where we can't figure something out, this is where these guys quit and they say, 'Beats me, I don't know, I think, you know, a miracle happened,' or 'the designer did it,' or something like that. Well, instead of that why don't we roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Referring to "the problem of incipient stages" he states:

Let's take the wing, for example, what good would half a wing do? I could see what good a fully aerodynamic wing would be, what good would half a wing do? Well, this is the problem of exaptation in which a feature which originally evolved for one purpose is co-opted for a different purpose. Incipient stages in wing evolution had uses other than for aerodynamic flight. Half wings were not poorly developed wings, they were well developed something elses. Perhaps, thermal regulating devices…since modern birds probably descended from bipedal theropod dinosaurs, wings with feathers could'of been employed for regulating heat.

Once again, the gaps a filled with imagination: "perhaps," "probably" and "could'of" are proof enough, if you can imagine it then it must be true. In fact, Michael Shermer stated, "Science matters because it is the preeminent story of our age, an epic saga about who we are, where we came from, and where we are going."
For this particular, and perhaps peculiar, sort of evolutionary atheist science is the greatest story ever told and a practical guide to human affairs the answer to all of mankind's ultimate questions.

Is it any wonder then, that Michael Denton has written:

Ultimately the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more nor less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century. Like the Genesis based cosmology which it replaced, and like the creation myths of ancient man, it satisfies the same deep psychological need for an all embracing explanation for the origin of the world which has-motivated all the cosmogenic myth makers of the past, from the shamans of primitive peoples to the ideologues of the medieval church.8

Richard Dawkins then makes the following polemical point:

it's not useful to challenge an individual biologist's ingenuity in thinking up what particular intermediates might have looked like because we don't…I mean maybe we're not ingenious enough to think what they are[…]we shouldn't in any case be saying, 'Oh, I can't think what the explanation for it is, therefore it must have been designed.' There's a fatal weakness in any argument which says, 'I cannot understand how X could have happened, therefore it must have been designed'[…]It's that element of giving up. It's that element of defeatism. Saying, “I can't understand how it works. Well, let's fall back on the design explanation.”

Richard Dawkins appears to be arguing against his own view. He claims that there were useful advantages in intermediate stages but demands that we not ask what they were nor what they did, what the purpose was nor how they were advantageous. But we also should not think that it must have been designed since that would be "a fatal weakness, an element of giving up, an element of defeatism." But what is his view? It appears to be that since his theory calls for useful advantages, then they existed. But do not ask for proof, if you want proof then we will claim that the most persuasive proof is faith. In other words, where there are gaps in Richard Dawkins' knowledge he fills them with a story, with "possible," with "might have," with his faith-"I can't understand how it works." Well, let's fall back on the faith in natural selection explanation.
Please recall that Richard Dawkins made reference to "gradual, gradual change such that you wouldn't have noticed it" but that it is "a matter of fact that can be observed - not directly - but by it's aftermath." Note very carefully that this does not deal with the raw facts of the evidence in and of itself, but with interpretation of evidence. For example, we may find a fossil of a reptile and a fossil of a bird. We find that the reptile fossil has a certain bone and we find that the fossil of the bird has a certain bone. These are the facts of the matter, the evidence is clearly observable. However, Darwin's adherents would state that the bone of the reptile eventually became a different bone in the bird. But how do they know this? They do not. But it is a statement of faith because their theory calls for it to be thus. Some scientists, such as Scott C. Todd from Kansas State University's Department of Biology, have taken their faith to such an extreme that they openly proclaim that they will purposefully deny any evidence that interferes with their beliefs, "Even if all the data pointed to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."9
Richard Dawkins stated,

A leap of faith that just means that a person has a…a sort of inside, internal feeling of…revelation, which is not sharable with anyone else and which can't be demonstrated to anybody else, to me that just sounds like a mental delusion.

But is this not the very thing that he has presented us with? The theory is so coherent and powerful that it must be true. Therefore, all evidence must be interpreted through, or manipulated by, its tenets. Richard Dawkins appeals to his faith in order to fill in the gaps while he expected us to believe something "that can't be demonstrated to anybody else," he is, in this case, a victim of his own "mental delusion."

Richard Dawkins has written:

Chance, luck, coincidence, miracle…events that we commonly call miracles are not supernatural, but are part of a spectrum of more-or-less improbable natural events. A miracle, in other words, if it occurs at all, is a tremendous stroke of luck.10

But what of his own view of origins?:

It is as though, in our theory of how we came to exist, we are allowed to postulate a certain ration of luck.11

1. 1. George Wald, "The Origin of Life," Scientific American, Vol. 191, No. 2, August 1954, p.48 also quoted in Stephen Jay Gould, "An Early Start," Natural History, Vol. 87, No. 2, February 1978, pp.10-26 and Gould's The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History (London, Penguin, 1980 reprinted 1990), p.182
2. 2. John Horgan, "In the Beginning…," Scientific America, (Feb. 1991) 264:116-125, p. 118
3. 3. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker-Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1986), pp. 139, 317-318
4. 4. The Official Richard Dawkins Website, Quotes
5. 5. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life-Chapter VIII-Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection as applied to Instincts: Neuter and Sterile Insects
6. 6. The Atheism Tapes, Part 4: Richard Dawkins and Jonathan Miller
7. 7. The Blind Watchmaker, p. 140
8. 8. Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Burnett Books, 1985), p. 358
9. 9. Scott C. Todd, "A View from Kansas on that Evolution Debate," Nature, Vol. 401, Sep. 30, 1999, p. 423
10. 10. The Blind Watchmaker, p. 139
11. 11. The Blind Watchmaker, p. 145