Editing Intelligent design (section)

===God of the gaps===
Intelligent design has also been characterized as a [[God of the gaps|God-of-the-gaps]] argument,<ref name="Stanford--GodoftheGaps">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Ratzsch |first=Del |editor-first=Edward N |editor-last=Zalta |editor-link=Edward N. Zalta |encyclopedia=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] |title=Teleological Arguments for God's Existence |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleological-arguments/#IntDesIDMov |access-date=2014-02-28 |date=October 3, 2010 |publisher=The Metaphysics Research Lab |location=Stanford, Calif. |issn=1095-5054 |at=Section 4.3, The "Intelligent Design" (ID) Movement}}</ref> which has the following form:
* There is a gap in scientific knowledge.
* The gap is filled with acts of God (or intelligent designer) and therefore proves the existence of God (or intelligent designer).<ref name="Stanford--GodoftheGaps" />

A God-of-the-gaps argument is the theological version of an [[argument from ignorance]]. A key feature of this type of argument is that it merely answers outstanding questions with explanations (often supernatural) that are unverifiable and ultimately themselves subject to unanswerable questions.<ref>See, for instance: {{cite journal |last=Bube |first=Richard H. |author-link=Richard H. Bube |date=Fall 1971 |title=Man Come Of Age: Bonhoeffer's Response To The God-Of-The-Gaps |url=http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/14/14-4/14-4-pp203-220_JETS.pdf |journal=[[Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society]] |volume=14 |issue=4 |pages=203–220 |issn=0360-8808 |access-date=2014-02-28}}</ref> [[History of science|Historians of science]] observe that the [[astronomy]] of the earliest [[civilization]]s, although astonishing and incorporating [[mathematics|mathematical constructions]] far in excess of any practical value, proved to be misdirected and of little importance to the development of science because they failed to inquire more carefully into the mechanisms that drove the [[astronomical object|heavenly bodies]] across the sky.<ref>[[#Ronan 1983|Ronan]], p. 61</ref> It was the [[Ancient Greece|Greek civilization]] that first practiced science, although not yet as a formally defined experimental science, but nevertheless an attempt to rationalize the world of natural experience without recourse to divine intervention.<ref>[[#Ronan 1983|Ronan]], p. 123</ref> In this historically motivated definition of science any appeal to an intelligent creator is explicitly excluded for the paralysing effect it may have on [[scientific progress]].