Kate! I was really beginning to like you :-)
After I said
Science has never filled a gap in with anything that requires the supernatural intervention of a divine being.-K99
You said
I stopped reading your post after this sentence. I am afraid I disagree with you. Einstein knew the equation behind E=mc2. He understood how it worked. He believed in God. We all know that photons exist and are produced by matter in a chemical reaction. But I have never met or spoken tanyone who could explain it, or produce evidence that photons are produced by chance. When Einstein discovered a complex equation to explain how energy is produced, he did not say it required supernatural intervention. He just accepted and believed God did it.
Newton also believed in God. His work on Gravity isn't as complex, but still drives home my point. There is a gap in human knowledge, lets fill it with God or an intellegent being as a Creator.
Whats the big deal if we do?
Well thanks a bunch for ignoring the rest of my post ;-)... As others have posted, Einstein's belief in a Christian mono-theistic deity is vastly exagerated. Even if he did I don't recall seeing anything where he appealed to divine intervention or causation where he lacked understanding or knowledge.
Newton did have a faith and did ascribe gaps in his knowledge and understanding to God but he lived in a very different world.
My point is that there no scientific theory that explains anything we have learnt about over the past 150+ years that requires God's intervention at some point to make it all happen. People have used pseudo-science around things like irreducible complexity to try and imply that God must have had a hand in the evolutionary process at some point but this is not generally accepted by the vast majority of experts.
I am pretty sure that you could not present any scientific hyposthesis or theory that explains a gap in knowledge or understanding with God.
You must have carried on reading since after I had said
but there is nothing in the physical laws known to science that requires the active intervention of God to form the universe.-K99
you then said
I am afraid I disagree again. Yes there is, as another poster mentioned which impressed upon me....God had to use complex separating techniques in order for the correct balance of entantiomers to be formed in stero isomers for living things to form.
If you think I lack IQ to draw this conclusion thats okay with me. But I lack knowlege of how it could have happened by chance, not IQ.
I have to say I don't know enough about the specific example to comment on the scientific merits of your statement - I will leave that up to Cofty or Cantleave. Assuming there is no credible theory or even hypothesis then perhaps you are right - perhaps this is the smoking gun that proves there has to have been divine intervention. In some ways I would love it to be true as perhas I could then re-establish some kind of faith and dream that I will be able to enjoy the future beyond my limited lifespan now.
What my gut now tells me however is based on every other example of the advancement of scientific knowledge - it all boils down to the predicable behaviour of the components of our universe. If there is indeed an open question over what you mention then my hunch is that when science finally gets around to explaining it they will not need to involve God at any point.
I certainly don't think you lack the IQ to draw any conclusion you wish. In fact, just thinking about it shows you have an enquiring mind. I certainly don't claim any intellectual superiority just because I can no longer accept the God the the Gaps.
I do however stand by my statement. I accept it is pretty sweeping and covers a lot of physics that is WAAAAY beyond my comprehension but in principle the whole of the timeline between the big bang and now is explainable. I guess that some of it is perhaps hypothesis rather than established theory but please correct me if there are any gaps where it is impossible for science to go from A to B without involving God.
Your very statement above about "lack of knowledge about how it could have happened by chance" is the one that concerns me most when considering the God of the Gaps. My view is that often the use of "chance" in this context is perjorative and dismissive. It often reverses the argument such that an open, investigative mind is constrained. For example, the position of the Earth and Moon relative to the Sun such that life flourishes is considered by Creationists to be demonstrate design rather than the oppositive view that the life we see has been moulded by it's environment rather than built for it.
I am not suggesting that you personally are dismissive of scientific progress however the God of the Gaps approach inevitably leads to a less open mind. It's your right and perogative to accept it but I won't be holding my breath waiting for the message of victory when science demonstrates that God needed to be involved in a given situation.
Regardless, I do still like you :-)
