God of the Gaps

Most of us have probably heard of the fallacious scientific argument that some creationists have used. That is "if there is a problem that is seemingly unsolvable by natural science, God is the only explanation.". This fallacy has been dubbed the "God of the gaps" fallacy. Time and time again scientists point out that we may still find a natural explanation for any given phenomna and scientists have indeed found explanations for many of these seemingly unsolvable problems.

-

I will now introduce to you another fallacy which I have dubbed.......

....The Dud of the Gaps fallacy

This fallacy is the product of another extreme position that tends to abuse and misunderstand science. Ironically the people who hold this position are the very ones who ram the God of the gaps fallacy down the throat of creationists. This position is anti-theism.

Let me give an example from famous anti-theist Richard Dawkins

Back in 2009, in The Greatest Show on Earth (pp. 332-333), he wrote ...

..." It stretches even their [creationists] creative ingenuity to make a convincing reason why an intelligent designer should have created a pseudogene -- a gene that does absolutely nothing and gives every appearance of being a superannuated version of a gene that used to do something -- unless he was deliberately setting out to fool us."

Dawkins goes on...

..."Leaving pseudogenes aside, it is a remarkable fact that the greater part (95 percent in the case of humans) of the genome might as well not be there, for all the difference it makes."

Dawkins' goal here is of course to show that an intelligent designer didnt design us because there are features in nature which have no purpose, such as non protien coding DNA.

And here in lies the fallacy. "We dont know what purpose this organ has so we will say it is vestigial or a "dud".

Time and time again scientists point out that we may still find a purpose for any given phenomna and scientists have indeed found explanations for many of these seemingly unsolvable problems.

For example the appendix which we used to think was a vestigial organ is now known to play an important role in the control of organisms in the gut thus promoting a positive effect in the overall immune system of the organism.

or

The pseudogenes that Dawkins mentioned. The ENCODE project released their research in 2012 which revealed purpose for more than 80 percent of the human genome. Now we know more of what "pseudogenes" do with their amazing regulation, editing and splicing codes.