God-of-the-gaps

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God-of-the-gaps
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The myth that science has overtaken religion in
the business of explanation...
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God of the Gaps - before science
Explanations tended to be in terms of the
influence of spirits or God.
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God of the Gaps - before science
But note the subtle distinctions
regarding different kinds of causal explanation
as in say Aristotle with his final, formal,
efficient and material causes.
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God of the Gaps - emergence of science
As yet no sense of the threat of science to
religion indeed the fruits of science are often
welcomed. Note Francis Bacons idea of Gods two
books The Book of Nature (Gods works) and The
Book of Scripture (Gods words).
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God of the Gaps - is the growth of science now
competing with the explanatory role of religion?
The 19th cc saw a complex set of relationships
between the two modes of discourse from easy
accommodation, to deliberate warfare as some
scientists strove to become independent of the
state-church power brokers.
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God of the Gaps - the myth of warfare and the
increasing triumph of science
Little room for religion as science grows in
understanding, power and influence. The myth that
religion is in its last days is promulgated by
many as the final stages of the triumph of the
Enlightenment.
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God of the Gaps - the death throws of God talk
Science will soon close this gap in our
understanding. God will finally have no role to
play in explaining anything.
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God of the Gaps - in the future Science Rules
OK!
There is no place for religion in
offering explanations. Science has finally
triumphed. There is no role for God as an
explanatory category.
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But ...
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This account is a myth.

• Historians of science have shown that it was
  simply not the case that the emerging modern
  sciences were seen to be at war with religion for
  a total dominance of explanations.
• Philosophers of science are quick to point out
  that only naïve positivist understandings of
  science claim a monopoly on legitimate
  explanations.

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On not confusing types of explanation

• There are many different kinds of explanations,
  and a number of typologies of them have been
  offered. A commonly used one is derived from
  Ennis, Brown and Atkins, and is frequently used
  by Poole. Explanations tend to fall into one of
  three different types
• Interpretative roughly answering Why?
  questions
• Descriptive roughly answering How?
  questions
• Reason-giving roughly answering What?
  questions

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Why is this kettle boiling?
Because someone wants a cup of tea
Descriptive explanation - answers WHY? in terms
of an agents motive.
Both are valid. Different explanations can both
be true at the same time. They are not rivals if
the import of the WHY? question is different!
Because the average kinetic energy of the water
molecules is sufficient for a change of state
from liquid to gas.
Descriptive explanation - answers a different
WHY? in scientific terms.
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Reason giving explanations as to the origin of
the universe may answer the WHY? question in
scientific terms such as the Big Bang theory, or
they may be religious answers to a different
WHY? in terms of Gods agency, choice and
purpose. WHY? is an ambiguous question. This is
one reason why the popular distinction between
science and theology in terms of the former being
concerned with the HOW? and the latter with the
WHY? is unwise. Both science and theology are
interested in the WHY?, but the questions receive
different answers appropriate to their different
discourses.
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COMMON FALLACIES WHICH APPEAR IN SCIENCE -
RELIGION DEBATES
This section is indebted to the lucid discussion
of these matters by Mike Poole in Explaining or
Explaining Away, in Science and Christian Belief,
Vol. 14 (2) Oct 2002, p123-142
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1. The Naming Fallacy

• When a label is offered to do service for an
  explanation.
• eg. The question why do things fall to the
  ground? is answered in terms of gravity. If
  this is a mere label then it explains nothing. It
  is a pseudo explanation. It does nothing more as
  it stands than label the phenomenon.

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2. The Reification fallacy

• Reification is confusing a concept with a real
  object or cause. Labels take on a life of their
  own and are used as causes or purposive agents.
• eg. evolution gravity chance nature when
  treated carelessly as if they somehow decide.
  Thus it is common to set, say, evolution up as a
  rival to God as creator. Evolution explains
  away its rival thereby. That a seed
  automatically grows under the right conditions
  does not mean the process is necessarily unguided
  and wholly unthought out. (cf Mark 427)

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3. Preoccupation with only one type of
explanation.

• Science is the usual candidate here. It is
  interesting to note the preferred science for the
  best explanation (Dawkins - Biology Hawking -
  physics).
• But religious folk do it too, reducing everything
  to God talk and ignoring the insights from other
  disciplines. (Exorcising the mental illness
  praying for the toothache and not going to the
  dentist as well).
• Ask of so-called best explanations, Best for
  what purpose? It depends on the question being
  asked.

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4. Reductionism

• There is a legitimate use of reductionism in
  science when macro phenomena are explained in
  terms of underlying micro processes. This is
  methodological reductionism. It is ubiquitous in
  science and no threat to theology.
• The fallacy comes when metaphysical or
  ontological reductionism kicks in, claiming that
  a complex phenomenon is nothing-but some
  account in terms of component parts. But the
  whole is greater than the mere sum of the parts.
  We call this emergence. Consider water being more
  than just Hydrogen and Oxygen and the point is
  rather obvious.

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THEOLOGY
is explained by / nothing but / simply / just
SOCIOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY
BIOLOGY
CHEMISTRY
PHYSICS
MATHEMATICS
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5. The explaining away fallacy

• Giving an account of the reasons for someone
  holding a particular belief and then claiming
  that you have thereby explained away the content
  of that belief.
• eg. giving an psychological account of a persons
  theism or atheism says nothing about the truth or
  falsity of either. There are a number of
  legitimate issues to separate out here
• i legitimate grounds for belief
• ii justifications for those beliefs
• iii the truth or falsity of those beliefs
• iv Whether those beliefs constitute knowledge,
  where knowledge is justified true belief (pace
  Gettier).

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... explanations answering different questions
are not necessarily rivals ... The first moral,
therefore, is that there is not just one single,
the explanation for anything which we may wish to
have explained. There may instead be as many, not
necessarily exclusive, alternative explanations
as there are legitimate explanations - demanding
questions to be asked.

• Professor Anthony Flew - lifelong atheist who
  became a theist / deist in 2004. Thinking about
  Social Thinking, Oxford Blackwell (1985), p40

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6. The no need for fallacy

• When privileging on kind of explanation (eg.
  scientific) removes the need for any other kind
  (eg. theological).

My aim is to argue that the universe can come
into existence without intervention, and that
there is no need to invoke the idea of a Supreme
Being...
Peter Atkins in Creation Revisited
Sir Julian Huxley in Essays of a Humanist
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...the only way of explaining creation is to show
that the creator had absolutely no job to do at
all, and so might as well have not
existed...track down the infinitely lazy creator
... (who) can be allowed to evaporate into
nothing and disappear from the scene..
Peter Atkins in Creation Revisited p17
Charles Coulson in Science and Religion p9
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6. The no need for fallacy
Is this a Category mistake - confusing a divine
act of creation with the processes by which this
may be accomplished?
In terms of methodology within the discourse of
science?
NO
In ontological or metaphysical terms?
YES
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Professor Roger Trigg on Sociobiological
explanations
E. O. Wilson, the founder of sociobiology wrote
in On Human Nature, The highest forms of
religious practice, when examined more closely,
can be seen to confer biological advantage.
The sociobiological explanation of religion seems
to try to show why religious belief is held even
though it is false. But if Wilsons view of
religion is correct, a major decline in religious
commitment would be biologically harmful, and yet
it appears that sociobiology is encouraging this.
Roger Trigg
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7. Type errors

• This is where different types of explanation are
  muddled up. Coulsons God-of-the-gaps thinking is
  another term for this.

Why is the dog fish like this?
What time to you make it?
Any time you fancy darling!
Because God made it so
...until recently one of religions main
functions was scientific the explanation of
existence, of the universe, of life ... So the
most basic claims of religion are scientific.
Religion is a scientific theory.
Richard Dawkins in a lecture at the 1992
Edinburgh international science festival.
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God-of-the-gaps