[Originally posted this is 2015 and it turned out to be one of the more popular postings. While the article responds to the posturing of an internet atheist, it clearly stands on its own and has also withstood the test of time. I still have no idea what atheists would even count as evidence for God other than a Gap.]
Steve Greene wrote a web article entitled How to validate atheism in one easy step and gives us the most common defense of atheism that is out there:
So this is how you validate atheism in one easy step: Ask the god-believer to produce actual, credible, real world evidence of this god. He will never do it. He will always engage in word games employed to try to conjure up his god – while never even attempting to produce actual, relevant, empirical evidence of any god. He will talk about everything else under the sun, engage in rhetorical trickery, misdirection (red herring), misrepresentation (i.e., straw man criticism of atheism), all based on denying obvious facts about reality (like the problematic nature of “eyewitness testimony,” and the subjective nature of subjective beliefs about imaginary things making you feel good), while never getting around to producing any actual evidence of any god – oh, and then, a lot of times you even get the religious apologist who specifically employs some sort of “Divine Hiddenness” argument to try to pretend that his god arranged things deliberately that we would not have any actual evidence of its existence because religious faith (i.e., believing in the god based on faith, not evidence) is a virtue, believing without evidence is a virtue, and doubt (i.e., critical thinking and being skeptical about bogus claims that don’t have good evidence to back them up) is the influence of Satan or some other evil spirit.
Once again, we see how atheism is built on the Demand For Evidence. But we also know that such a demand is more of a rhetorical trick than a sincere expression of intellectual curiosity.
First of all, Greene is working with a shallow, superficial understanding of evidence. He seems to think that if certain data were indeed evidence for X, then these data would be universally perceived and acknowledged as evidence for X. But that is not how evidence works. Evidence is not objective reality that is detected by the senses; evidence is perceived by the mind. The mind converts data from objective reality into the subjective perception of evidence. Because the perception of evidence depends on interpretation from the mind, evidence itself is something that has a distinct subjective element to it. In fact, it would not be too far from the truth to note that evidence is in the eye of the beholder. So the fact that Greene is not convinced by “evidence” from religious people (appeals to eyewitness testimony, appeals to personal experience, and variants of the fine-tuning argument) means only that Greene finds such evidence to be unconvincing. But since the world does not revolve around Greene, the failure to convince him does not mean the evidence does not exist.
What Greene is doing to “validate” atheism is simply trying to posture and set the stage so he can act as Judge and Jury. The religious person is supposed to come before him and “plead their case” with their “evidence.” Greene will then decide the outcome of that case. Amazingly, many Christians fall for this tactic and play right into the hands of people like Greene.
When someone like Greene comes to you demanding “actual, credible, real world evidence of this god,” there are three simple questions you can ask to expose the sham nature of the inquiry and thus defeat the backdoor attempt to “validate atheism.”
Question 1: What would you count as “actual, credible, real world evidence for God?” If the atheist refuses to answer, he/she will be exposed as Hiding the Goalpost, demonstrating the inherent intellectual dishonesty in such a demand. If the atheist finally answers, there is a very, very high likelihood he/she will cite some dramatic, miraculous, sensational demonstration of God’s power. And that leads to the second question.
Question 2: Why would that dramatic, miraculous, sensational event count as evidence for God? At this point, the atheist will likely try to change the topic. But persist with the question. What you will find is that the reason why the atheist would count such an event as evidence for God is because it could not possibly be explained by natural causes and science. In other words, because it was a Gap. Modern day atheism is built on God of the Gaps logic.
At this point, you can ask the third question.
Question 3: Is the God of the Gaps reasoning a valid way of determining the existence of God? If the atheist has not bailed on you yet, he/she will likely run now. For if he/she answers NO, then it will become clear that nothing can count as evidence for the existence of God. Why? Because if the only “evidence” the atheist “Judge/Jury” will allow in his/her kangaroo court is a Gap (something that cannot be explained by science/natural law), and God-of-the-Gaps reasoning is also not allowed by the atheist, then it is clear the atheist demand for evidence is a sneaky, dishonest game of “heads I win, tails you lose.”
Of course, if the atheist answers YES to question 3, then the theist is free to raise Gaps as evidence for God (origin of Life, origin of the Consciousness, etc.). This is why the atheist will run or change the topic – his/her demand for evidence puts the atheist in the position of having to a) acknowledge the deceitful nature of their demand or b) acknowledge there is evidence because of certain existing gaps.
Finally, there is a Bonus question that can be used to supplement or replace the above approach. Since the atheist wants to judge and proclaim whether or not I have evidence for God’s existence, I need evidence this “judge” is open and fair-minded. What rational person would willingly put himself in a position of being judged by a hostile, biased, prejudiced judge? So you can ask the following question.
Bonus question: I’ll provide evidence for God’s existence, but can you first provide evidence that you are capable of considering my evidence in an open- and fair-minded manner?
Given that so many New Atheists are pompous, closed-minded verbal bullies, expect such a question to be ignored. And then you can simply point out that the atheist is simply not qualified to pass meaningful judgment on your beliefs. For prejudgment is not meaningful judgment.
Shadow To Light 
Speaking of “defeating modern-day atheism” via questioning rides on the hidden assumption that “modern-day atheists” are intellectually honest. But, as anyone who has interacted with a number of them understands … they are not.
I should have been more clear — Our Host’s approach as above can indeed demonstrate to one’s own satisfaction to to a third-party observer that the “modern-day atheist” was never sincere in his demand for “evidence” … but it can never get him to *become* sincere.
These questions are brilliant but, as Ilion pointed out, it’s so rare to find an atheist who’s intellectually honest enough to actually answer them.
A question I am considering posing to atheists is: How would Harry Potter use science to determine the existence of JK Rowling? That’s effectively what they’re asking us to do.
Michael, I believe the problem in the argument is made clear by making a simple substitution.
Suppose I find someone who disagrees with the statement, “If we don’t have an explanation for a phenomenon, then fairies are responsible.”
I ask him a clarifying question, “So you reject Fairies of the Gaps, then?”
“Yes, of course,” he says.
I then ask a follow-up question, “So what would count as evidence for fairies?”
He offers some kind of extraordinary phenomenon. Now I’ve got him!
I explain his own hypocrisy to him, “What you just described is a Gap, and you have inserted fairies into that Gap. Yet, earlier, you said you rejected Fairies of the Gaps.”
Have I really caught this guy in a contradiction? That is not a rhetorical question; please think about and answer it.
Chaudhari > Michael, I believe the problem in the argument is made clear by making a simple substitution… fairies
Michael has already looked at this; I’ll quote relevant parts of two threads:
Let’s re-phrase Michael’s ending:
…it seems rather shallow and ham-handed to closed-mindedly insist there is no God because there are no gaps, while perceiving God as being in the same category as fairies.
You weren’t around then, so presumably you didn’t read that.
This next has now appeared three times. I see you responded to its recent “[15]” re-posting so you have read and are aware of the argument:
I have linked to the 2020 re-posting, which attracted 68 responses; I am unaware that any responder made a case there, or any responder in two identical threads, that it is valid to substitute fairies. Perhaps you will be the first to make a positive case that fairies are a valid equivalent.
Chaudhari > Have I really caught this guy in a contradiction? That is not a rhetorical question; please think about and answer it.
Have you really caught Michael in a contradiction? That is not a rhetorical question; please think about and answer it.
N2C: “How would Harry Potter use science to determine the existence of JK Rowling? That’s effectively what they’re [demanding of] us to do.“
[I couldn’t resist pointing out the distinction between ‘ask’ and ‘demand’, and that far too many people use the former in place of the latter.]
I have sometimes thought that an appropriate response to “If there is a good God, why does he allow evil to exist?” would be something like, “If J R R Tolkien is a good Author, why does he allow Frodo to suffer so much?“
What do you think —
If Tolkien had the power to make Frodo real by ‘translating’ him from the world of LOTR to this world, do you think that Frodo would be upbraiding Tolkien for the suffering he endured? And, if he did, would it really be so different, in essence, from “Why did you make that ruffian, Strider, King, rather than me?“
Chaudhari is copy/pasting from a previous comment (and not for the first time): see https://shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2024/01/11/another-atheist-struggles-with-evidence/#comment-50386
The question has already been addressed at great length in that thread. Be warned that the exchange is tedious, as Chaudihari’s main techniques involve repeating his own talking points rather than engaging with replies, using “nuance” as a cover for sloppy reasoning, and implying that the other party is being emotionally fragile and petty.
If we remove the obfuscating reference to “fairies”, then the guts of Chaudihari’s argument is that it’s OK to take both sides of question #3. So, is the God of the Gaps reasoning a valid way of determining the existence of God? Yes and no. Maybe. It depends. It’s nuanced.
The answer is a bluff. If it were not a bluff, Chaudihari would be able to provide examples of both cases (yes and no) with clarifying commentary as to the rationale behind the categorisation. In actual practice, however, he has no examples of the “yes” case; he’s posturing as open-minded but unable to back up that claim with any evidence.
My previous challenge to him stands: prove me wrong by providing a concrete example of a case where you think that it’s valid to infer the existence of God due to lack of a natural explanation. Just one example. He can’t because he has none. He can lay down smokescreen galore, however, so keep your eyes peeled for an actual example in any forthcoming replies.
Well, there is always John Lennox’s “Tea-Drinker of the Gaps” argument. Though, it’s not so extraordinary a phenomenon.
Ilíon > Well, there is always John Lennox’s “Tea-Drinker of the Gaps” argument. Though, it’s not so extraordinary a phenomenon.
Sounds intriguing. Got a link?
While I was looking I found “Why I am a Christian: John Lennox (Transcript)”, which reinforces what Michael said in my two quotes above. It’s very long, I’ll quote the relevant part:
I should have been more clear — Our Host’s approach as above can indeed demonstrate to one’s own satisfaction to to a third-party observer that the “modern-day atheist” was never sincere in his demand for “evidence” … but it can never get him to *become* sincere.
I fully agree. There is something about human nature that keeps people from admitting they have lost an argument. Maybe it’s because human nature is…….corrupt?
Michael, I believe the problem in the argument is made clear by making a simple substitution.
Suppose I find someone who disagrees with the statement, “If we don’t have an explanation for a phenomenon, then fairies are responsible.”
As it was pointed out before, you are building on a false analogy. I can add a couple of more observations. First, what’s the basis for connecting some unexplained phenomenon to fairies? Second, as one who sees no evidence of fairies, I can easily tell you what I would count. 1) A non-doctored, reliable, clear photograph of a tiny humanoid with wings (weak evidence, but still evidence). 2. Catch one in a jar!
Michael, the issue is really so simple, but you’re making very difficult, perhaps unconsciously, which has the effect of avoiding the flaw in your argument.
“If we don’t have an explanation for a phenomenon, then fairies are responsible.”
You reject that statement, correct?
Therefore you reject Fairies of the Gaps, correct?
But if a fairy is caught in a jar, you say, that would be evidence. But the fairy caught in a jar is a gap into which you are inserting the explanation of “fairy”.
If you had rejected Fairies of the Gaps, then are you now caught in a contradiction?
Or is there some way to reject Fairies of the Gaps while also accepting the evidence of a fairy caught in a jar?
If you evade very straightforward questions yet again, then I’ll really know that something is up.
I love Christianity because it prioritizes the commandments. “There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31) Being kind may help you figure this whole thing out. I aim to be kind (even if I don’t always succeed). It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to make a flawed argument. Everyone makes mistakes. Anyone can make a flawed argument. I’m not going to judge you for it.
Believe it or not, I’m on your side. If you were making a flawed argument, you would want to know it, right?
So try to be kind. To non-Christians I would say, “Try being kind and see how it works out.” But to Christians I can say, “Try following the greatest commandments and see how it works out.”
With that in mind, please answer the questions and see where it leads.
I should also point out that I am not making an analogy.
I am swapping out a term with one that has considerably less baggage. Once we understand how the argument works with the less-baggaged term, we can look at how the argument works with the original term.
You may even make the case that swapping the term changes the argument completely, but in order to do that, you need to describe how they are different. And to do that, you first need to examine the argument with the less-baggaged term.
It’s not an analogy. It’s just examining an argument.
I had great difficulty untangling Chaudhari’s meaning
Chaudhari > Michael, I believe the problem in the argument is made clear by making a simple substitution… fairies… Suppose I find someone who disagrees with the statement, “If we don’t have an explanation for a phenomenon, then fairies are responsible.” [etc]
While it’s clear that you have insinuated a problem, I never managed to map the convoluted logic of your, “Suppose… disagrees… if… don’t… then…” into sufficiently clearly understandable English to work out what the problem might be. That is, if, if, if, IF there is indeed a problem in the argument Michael made, you have hardly made it clear, you have instead made it unclear.
*
I’ll remind you what the OP says:
Inserting your substitution into the OP, we get the modified question, “Question 3 (modified): Is the Fairies of the Gaps reasoning a valid way of determining the existence of fairies?” What is your own answer to this modified question, and where and what is the alleged problem?
*
I observe that Michael’s Q3 is what it is, not what it isn’t. While I am sort of interested in whatever answer Chaudhari might give to his ‘Fairies of the Gaps’ modified version of Q3, his answer is basically irrelevant. if he does not actually answer the actual Q3 he has failed to answer the actual Q3.
In that case, he will have revealed himself to be yet another of those who dodge that question, who cannot or will not give an answer.
Pointing out that there are those who behave evasively and dishonestly thus is the point of Michael’s OP.
*
TFBW > Chaudhari is copy/pasting from a previous comment (and not for the first time)
I note from experience that the type of mindless vandals who think it funny to rip down race route markers are easily defeated by putting up many of them. They cannot be arsed to do any serious work to achieve their malicious ends.
Chaudhari > Michael, the issue is really so simple, but you’re making very difficult…
It’s ironic that you of all people should accuse Michael of making a simple issue difficult. Perhaps you would simplify the convoluted logic of your opening response in this thread, as requested.
Chaudhari > But if a fairy is caught in a jar, you say, that would be evidence. But the fairy caught in a jar is a gap into which you are inserting the explanation of “fairy”.
That looks indistinguishable from a stream-of-consciousness babble of nonsense.
Chaudhari > If you evade very straightforward questions yet again, then I’ll really know that something is up.
In view of your immediately preceding sentence that’s really taking the piss.
Chaudhari > I love Christianity because it prioritizes the commandments. “There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31) Being kind may help you figure this whole thing out. I aim to be kind (even if I don’t always succeed). It’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay to make a flawed argument. Everyone makes mistakes. Anyone can make a flawed argument. I’m not going to judge you for it.
And this is both taking the piss and arrogant patronising. Your behaviour on S2L has been an example not of moral worth but of moral decrepitude.
Chaudhari > Believe it or not, I’m on your side. If you were making a flawed argument, you would want to know it, right?
You have been asked what the alleged flaws with the actual argument actually are, you have failed to specify them. If we do not know what these flaws are, well, point them out.
Chaudhari > So try to be kind. To non-Christians I would say, “Try being kind and see how it works out.” But to Christians I can say, “Try following the greatest commandments and see how it works out.”
I guess that, given your track record, it was inevitable you would resort so readily, so quickly – it’s a knee-jerk response with you, it seems – to the cheap rhetorical trick of pompous patronising. I am happy to treat that as I deem it deserves.
Chaudhari > With that in mind, please answer the questions and see where it leads.
Try it yourself. You can start by answering Q3. Actually answering.
Chaudhari > It’s not an analogy. It’s just examining an argument.
The OP arguably does not present an argument. The OP’s title, “[15]How to Defeat Modern Day Atheism With Three Easy Questions”, rather gives the game away.
Dhay: “Sounds intriguing. Got a link?“
Sadly, my google-fu skills are no match for yours. It’s an illustration he has given in any number of talks, and thus one may run across it in any number of TY videos in which he appears. I’ll try to represent it to you —
The point he is making is to refute the common atheistic ‘Science!‘ worshiper assertion that “scientific explanations” and “religious explanations” are at odds and even contradictory. And, more generally, and no doubt related to C S Lewis’ distinction between cause-and-effect and reason, the point is that physical cause-and-effect and agency are not necessarily rival/contradictory explanations.
So, one person may ask, “Why is the tea-kettle making that noise?“
And the other person may reply, “Because the fire under the kettle is heating the kettle, and heat is transferring to the water in the kettle, and this is ‘exciting’ the water molecules, causing some of the water to convert into steam, and as the steam escapes the kettle through that small hole in the top, it produces that sound.“
Or, the other person might say, simply “Because I want a cup of tea.“
Lennox then points out that both these explanations are true and that they do not contradict.
Of course Chaudhari is still repeating his talking points, telling us all we’re bad Christians, posturing as though he is learned and wise, and patronising like there’s a prize for overdoing it, but still not providing a concrete example of a case where he thinks that it’s valid to infer the existence of God due to lack of a natural explanation. I’d point out that I called it, but it’s like calling sunrise.
Ilíon > Good memory. Thanks. I now realise it was in the transcript I linked to, had I read that far:
It’s a bit unclear what “baggage” is supposed to be removed here. Maybe it’s the “baggage” of theism itself—the belief that God actually exists—so “God” is replaced by a mythical entity in which, we assume, nobody believes. Well, I have a suggestion: how about we choose another substitute with the opposite property: an entity whose existence is not a matter of controversy, but generally accepted? Let us “examine the argument” with that “less-baggaged term” and see what follows.
For the new substitute, I want something which we all agree exists, but still has a slight air of mystery about it. The exact substitute doesn’t matter, so long as we agree that the thing actually exists: the air of mystery is just a rhetorical flourish. To this end, I choose “sausages.” Now let us rewrite the Chaudhari challenge using the new “less-baggaged” term.
The major way in which this substitution breaks Chaudhari’s “not an analogy” is the point at which the sceptic requests “some kind of extraordinary phenomenon.” Why would one ask for that? Sausages may be mysterious, but they are relatively easy to find if one knows where to look for them. But even fairies (which, for the sake of argument, don’t exist) don’t require an extraordinary phenomenon, as was seen in Michael’s response to Chaudhari: a high-quality photograph would constitute weak evidence; a live, captive example would represent strong evidence. The same applies for sausages: I can show you photographs of sausages, or I can go get some from the local supermarket.
The “not an analogy” breaks down because the dialogue takes an unreasonable turn at the demand for “some kind of extraordinary phenomenon.” How does Chaudhari handle this objection? As follows.
If a fairy caught in a jar is a gap into which one inserts the explanation of “fairy”, then a sausage in a packet of sausages purchased from the supermarket is a gap into which one inserts the explanation of “sausage”. Blah blah whatnow?
I think I see the problem now: Chaudhari has absolutely no concept of what “gap” means in this context. The “gap” is a gap in the explanatory power of natural science—an inability to account for an observed phenomenon given the accepted model. A fairy in a jar is not a gap: it is a fairy in a jar, sure as a sausage in a pack of sausages is a sausage.
The problem extends beyond this point. Under a closer examination, no point in the original dialogue makes any sense. I can disagree with the statement, “if we don’t have an explanation for a phenomenon, then X is responsible,” for all values of X, because it’s simply too broad a claim. Why would I suppose that all our ignorance is grounded in a single cause? That’s silly.
Chaudhari’s “not an analogy” is a veritable dust storm of obfuscation and nonsense which confuses everything.
TFBW: “I think I see the problem now: Chaudhari has absolutely no concept of what “gap” means in this context. The “gap” is a gap in the explanatory power of natural science—an inability to account for an observed phenomenon given the accepted model. A fairy in a jar is not a gap: it is a fairy in a jar, sure as a sausage in a pack of sausages is a sausage.“
I think that defining a ‘gap’ simply as “an inability to account for an observed phenomenon given the accepted model” is open to misunderstanding, in that it seems to elide, or may be disingenuously used to elide, the necessary distinction between ‘currently unable to account for in practice‘ and ‘forever unable to account for in principle‘.
At the same time, ‘forever unable to account for in principle‘ isn’t necessarily a fatal flaw of an explanatory system, because an explanatory system’s inability to explain some phenomenon is not equivalent to the phenomenon being contrary to the axioms and rules of that system.
That’s a perfectly valid distinction, Ilíon, but I’m trying to dumb it down to the level where maybe even Chaudhari can see the problem. Also, whether a matter is unknowable in principle or merely unknown at present can be a matter of dispute, but the accepted model fails to account for it either way.
In the post-Gödel world, some subset of people recognise the existence of the “unknowable in principle” category, but the prevailing attitude immediately prior to that Great Undermining was that we could be like God and know all things, given enough time; the residue of that belief still persists in the spirit of Scientism. Beyond that point, there’s a bifurcation between epistemic humility on the one hand (admit that knowledge has limits; cope accordingly), and the postmodern school which has given up on knowledge as such and cares only about wielding power. The old school positivist wanted to be like God in the sense of knowing all things; the postmodern materialist thinks that it’s all just a fight over who gets to declare reality, and wants to be like God in the sense of speaking the world into being (mostly by preventing anyone else from saying otherwise). The whole “trans” movement is rooted in this.
One of my favourite quips on the subject of Gödel (and it dates back to the 80s, so forgive me if I offer a loose paraphrase) was a statement to the effect that if a “religion” is loosely defined as, “a system of beliefs which ultimately rest on articles of faith which cannot be proved by that system,” then mathematics is the only enterprise capable of offering a rigorous proof that it should be classified as such.
“If we don’t have an explanation for a phenomenon, then fairies are responsible.”
You reject that statement, correct?
Yes. As I said, this hypothetical person would first have to spell out the connection by answering one simple question – Why? Why does a fairy explain the unexplainable phenomenon?
Therefore you reject Fairies of the Gaps, correct?
Yes.
But if a fairy is caught in a jar, you say, that would be evidence. But the fairy caught in a jar is a gap into which you are inserting the explanation of “fairy”.
Huh? You are wrong. The fairy in the jar is NOT a gap. It is an entity, a specimen. It can be studied and measured.
“In the post-Gödel world, …“
Off-topic, but: To this day, even most people with advanced mathematics training (and degrees) refuse to understand that “Division by zero is ‘undefined’” is a false, or perhaps even meaningless, statement, and that Gödel has already demonstrated how it is that a rational agent can *know* what 1/0 equals even as that answer cannot by proven by mathematical operations.
In my experience, trying to get an “I’m a degreed mathematician” to think past “Division by zero is ‘undefined’” is akin to trying to get an internet atheist to think past “There is no evidence for god!” … including the abandonment of reason and logic, and dishing out of vitriol.
Coincidentally, on another blog another poster has written a post on evidence as such (https://thomism.wordpress.com/2024/03/29/evidence/). With a definition: “Evidence is any object causing intellectual assent, that is, the judgment that something is true.”.
And, as he writes further, “This also deflates the fascination with “evidence” or the need to quibble with whether a belief “has evidence.” There is evidence whenever there is a cause of intellectual assent, so establishing that there is “evidence” for a claim requires only establishing someone was, in fact, caused to assent to it.”.
So, there is evidence for Climate Change, Evolution, Creationism, Flat Earth etc. That part is not interesting. (Maybe there is no evidence for fairies – but that simply means that people who clearly seriously believe that fairies exist are relatively hard to find.)
Which is pretty much why the common atheist refrain “There is no evidence!!!” makes them look unreasonable. (It is effectively equivalent to the claim that all theists are only pretending to be theists, and it is clear that it is not so, and that the atheists actually know that.)
As for the “gaps”, perhaps it would be worth to put the form of that argument:
It is clear that this form of argument is often used in science. For example, A could be “The planet is in this position, and it was in this position before etc.”, with X being “There is another planet beyond it.”. That’s pretty much how Neptune was discovered. So, the form of the argument is manifestly good.
However, it is not all that obvious what A could be for X “Fairies exist.”. One problem is that it is not very clear what is supposed to count as a fairy. (Still, it is obvious that one can argue against “Fairies exist.” (or any other proposition) dishonestly, which is one more reason why Chaudhari’s example doesn’t work.)
But, of course, attacking such arguments properly (discussing, for example, what explanations are “good”, not just using an exclamation “God-of-the-Gaps!!!” to dismiss all such arguments out of hand) is much harder, requiring effort and competence. And if the atheists would do so, perhaps even they would soon discover that they are being closed-minded. And, for some reason, they really do not like to think of themselves as closed-minded…
That “definition” is not a definition in the ordinary meaning of the word; it’s a subjective rather than objective definition, a private definition confined to this one blogger, who even by ardent Roman Catholic standards is an out-on-a-limb maverick. The first half of MP’s response can thus be ignored as irrelevant tosh.
And then, having tried (and failed) to impress with his intellectual credentials, MP returns like a dog to its vomit to “Gaps”.
I observe that lines 2 and 3 of MP’s syllogism looks like it could be shortened to, “The only known good explanation for A includes X”. I observe that MP makes the simple unnecessarily complicated. Which I suspect is a choice, it aids obfuscation.
It is not clear that this [syllogism] is often used in science. I just don’t come across it. Your Neptune example is cringeworthy. In the 2015 original of this thread you claimed that “Stones fall to the ground” and “This medication helps” (or “This medication doesn’t help”) are laws of nature — laws of nature! Your cluelessness in that thread continues unabated in this.
Who is it you allege has ‘used the exclamation “God-of-the-Gaps!!!” to dismiss arguments out of hand’? Not any here who have argued against your crap or critiqued it, surely. Citation and link required, or retraction.