Speaking of theistic evolutionists, they are fond of claiming that arguments for design in nature are God-of-the-gaps arguments.
Here’s how it works: Wherever Darwinism—natural selection acting on random mutations—seems an insufficient explanation, we are assured that another Darwinian explanation will soon arise to fill the “gap.”
And that is true. Because there seems to be no natural selection process for weeding out bad Darwinian arguments that don’t fit the facts. Whichever one is pitchforked in first will do. If a newer one comes along, the old one doesn’t disappear forever, it just gets recycled a few years later.
Over at Truthquest, biophysicist Kirk Durston offers two examples of arguments, one of which is an actual God-of-the-gaps argument and one is not:
Example of a god-of-the-gaps argument:
1. We do not know what encoded the functional information in the genomes of life.
2. If we do not know what caused something, then God must have done it.
3. Therefore, God encoded the functional information in the genomes of life.
vs. a non-god-of-the-gaps argument:
1. At present, intelligent minds are the only verifiable method whereby non-trivial levels of functional information can be produced
2. The genomes of life contain non-trivial levels of functional information.
3. Therefore, the only explanation we have at present for the functional information encoded in the genomes of life is that it was produced by an intelligent mind.
Here’s Durston’s explanation of the difference.