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Talk:God of the gaps

Argument from ignorance, personal incredulity, or failing Ockham's razor or?
The "god of the gaps" fills in the gaps of knowledge with God, so how is it labeled as an argument from ignorance (assuming someting is true until proven false or false until proven true)? Shouldn't it be labeled as an argument from personal incredulity or failing Ockham's razor? The "god of gaps" makes the extra assumption of God, failing Ockham's razor. But it doesn't necessarily assume anything is true until proven false or false until proven true (argument from ignorance). However depending upon how the argument is phrased, it can be either an argument from ignorance, personal incredulity, or failing Occam's razor, or all of the above --66.167.232.203 (talk) 14:56, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

 * How about "an argument from stupidity"? --AVM (talk) 21:57, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

 * It's argument from ignorance, because as an obvious point of logic, you're using points of scientific ignorance as 'proof' of God as if there's evidence for that, rather than a natural explanation yet unknown. As science chips away at the gaps God is vanquished until he retreats to ever smaller nooks of cosmological history (currently the big bang, and there's still religious nutjobs trying to claim gaps in the geological fossil records 'disproving' evolution).  The God of the Gaps is *the* classic argument from ignorance. 89.101.108.187 (talk) 20:49, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Question
Who developed this term? Where is it used? RickK | Talk 22:26, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Google gives 5000+ hits, many very interesting. Recommend http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2003/09/davies.htm  Moriori 23:32, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)

Removed text
''God of the gaps or God in the gaps holds that there are important gaps in scientific knowledge. The claim is that since these gaps cannot be filled by man, a god must be invoked to account for the existence of these mysteries. In reality, gaps in knowledge have become smaller. Science repeatedly produces mundane, natural explanations for what seemed like mysterious events over centuries and there is no apparent reason that remaining “mysteries” such as extra-sensory perception, the origins of life and the universe, or stigmata, will not be explained by scientific explanation.''

This was listed on cleanup as being POV, and I agree. I hope I've done better, but it's difficult. Andrewa 09:14, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

More removed
There was an extra paragraph about creationism and God of the gaps proving more and more creationism and then ending up with a with Occam's Razor saying it all made sense. It was fairly obviously POV. Initially I was going to correct the Occam's Razor comment but after rereading the paragraph noted that it was all pretty unsavable. Occam's Razor called for the simpliest argument without bias to explain what is meant by God of the gaps. Tat 08:19, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Creationist response?
The "god of the gaps" is a philosophical argument made by scientists / atheists. We have a reference for the factuality of that statement in the article. The second paragraph is (an NPOV phrasing of) a creationist rebuttal to the argument. I wonder whether it is appropriate here. Probably it is, but I'm not totally sure. Anyway, it would be nice to have a reference documenting the fact the creationists actually bother to reply to the "god of the gaps" argument. Otherwise, it's original research. Dbenbenn 20:17, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * just a modified version of the Cosmological argument ... every cause has another cause ... but the gap never goes away ... it just gets bigger and bigger ... Ungtss 21:22, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * What's with the rebuttle again. A real rebuttle is one thing and perfectly fine. The rationalization of theists is one thing but creationist? It overly specific to a group. The counter should simply be the rationalizations of people who don't believe it. Also you state "the gap never goes away... it just gets bigger and bigger", this tells me you have no clue what you're talking about. The argument is the gaps get smaller and smaller. God of the gaps has very little to do with the Cosmological argument. It's explanations for things not cause and effect. Theistic responces need to get covered but that paragraph is just bad. Tat 04:34, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * umm ... let's let the rebutters write their own rebuttal, shall we?
 * << The counter should simply be the rationalizations of people who don't believe it.>>
 * no, i think the counter should be very simply "why this argument fails on a logical basis."
 * <>
 * the rebuttal is that the gap is getting bigger and bigger. the more we learn, the more we're discovering how complex and intricate the world is, and the less likely it's appearing that it came about by chance.  whether the paragraph is bad or not is your pov.  i find it rather compelling.  Ungtss 19:34, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the gaps are shrinking, and many of them have been closed up completely. It only appears that more gaps are forming because, in the process of stitching up the known gaps, we have been noticing others that were already there. Really, which makes more sense: filling up the gaps using confirmable observations of the universe and inferences based upon those observations, or simply writing "God did it" in the blanks and considering it fixed? Jesin 19:21, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Why the paragraph should not be used.
Theists see the "god of the gaps" argument in a different light.
 * This isn't a different light, it's ignoring the the God of the gaps problem. That's not rebuttal.
 * god of the gaps depends on the assumption that the gap is getting smaller. the rebuttal very clearly says that the gap exists, and is getting bigger, making design more reasonable and naturalism less reasonable over time.  that's a full-on rebuttal.  Ungtss 03:59, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

They argue that every step in the development of science has uncovered greater and greater evidence of design; for example, the God of the Gaps that created the geocentric universe pales in comparison to the God of the Gaps that created the universe as we now understand it.
 * That's not God of the Gaps. That's simply God. God of the Gaps refers to a deity given credit for things not explained by science. When people thought that God caused the sun to move across the sky would be a more powerful deity does nothing in the situation. The earth simply spins and makes it look like that. That's God of the Gaps. The argument that more complexity in the universe just means God is more powerful is fine. But, it's not a God of the Gaps rebuttal.
 * yessir it is a rebuttal. our view of God as the "gap" in our knowledge is GROWING.  Ungtss 03:59, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

They argue that if the gap were getting smaller with scientific advances, one could expect it to ultimately disappear.
 * This is what is argued by the promoters of God of the Gaps.
 * right. and since the premise fails, the conclusion fails.  Ungtss 03:59, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

On the contrary, however, every step of science has made the gap bigger, making belief in design more reasonable, and belief in naturalism less reasonable.
 * Beyond being patently untrue, this also doesn't address the issue. Simply because the world is more complex doesn't mean science has stopped explaining something which use to be attributed to God.
 * right. but it's saying that for every answered question, 10 new questions are uncovered, so that although the gap MOVES, it is not getting smaller.  religion may be WRONG about what God DID, and science helps refine that ... but science isn't proving that there is no God -- on the contrary, it's making belief in God more reasonable.  Ungtss 03:59, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

They argue that while Creationism requires the assumption of a single enormously powerful creator,
 * You started out refering to Theists, mostly because the rebuttal to "god of the gaps" would be a theistic rebuttal then you switch back to creationism from theism.
 * i just changed creationist to theist to try and make you happy. sorry i missed one.  Ungtss 03:59, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

''naturalism requires the assumption of innumerable unknown sources and causes for the intricately interwoven nature of the universe. They conclude that since Occam's razor prefers the theory requiring the fewest discrete assumptions, theism is more reasonable than naturalism.''
 * Occam's razor says the simplist explanation is the best. Not the one containing the fewest discrete assumption. The single assumption "God makes stars twinkle" is fewer than nuclear fusion in stars, alteration of the light as it enters the atmosphere, and those alterations being interpreted by the eye as "twinkling". This misinterpretation of Occam's Razor is fairly common in Creationist circles.
 * <>
 * um ... you're clearly misinterpretting occam's razor yourself. it doesn't say that simplest explanation is the best.  "God makes stars twinkle" is clearly the simplest.  occam's razor says don't assume more than you have to.  And if you can explain things without assuming God, go ahead, but don't make a million assumptions about nature just so you don't have to assume God.  Occam was as Christian, by the way.  Ungtss 03:59, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Finally, I looked for several hours to find your sources and finally just found some actual rebuttals to the argument. I am fairly certain you personally wrote that paragraph without actually seeing any creationist make such an argument. Which seems more likely as you were quick to convert that same paragraph to be a theist rebuttal. In which case it would fall under original research. My rebuttal is taken from a number of sources and paraphrases some of SkepticalChristian's work (best rebuttal I found). A link which I added to the article as it firstly addresses the argument and secondly is very well written. Also, you stated, in so many words, that you should write the rebuttal. Making me think that that is your own personal rebuttal. I can't find creationism addressing God in the Gaps in any detail, could you source your work? Feel free to PoV the rebuttal a bit more if you feel it needs it but stop sticking in that paragraph that doesn't even address the problem. Tat 01:33, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * whatever makes you happy:). Ungtss 03:59, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Is the Plato/Aristotle paragraph appropriate?
Ungtss has included in the section on theist rebuttal arguments about teleology including a rehash of a section from the linked article. There are two questions we need to answer: 1) Can we consider Plato and Aristotle to be theists or dealing with this question at all? 2) Is teleology a specific attack on God of the gaps or is it more appropriately an attack on philosophical naturalism?

From my end, it seems clear that one can believe in teleology and still dislike the concept of a "God of the gaps" and see certain arguments as problematic in that regard. One can, in fact, be a creationist and make the "God of the gaps" argument against others (as many YECs make against the OECs). While teleology may be worth mentioning in the article, it may also be misleading to include this paragraph.

Comments? Joshuaschroeder 23:57, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * there is no substance in the above. the attributed summary of plato's argument goes directly to the heart of the God of the gaps.  your "question" about plato and aristotle being theists would benefit from a brief read of their works.  as to your second "question," since the god of the gaps is a core argument of philosophical naturalism, teleology very clearly goes to both.  please, schroeder.  the view is relevent, attributed, and accurate.  please allow npov to go forward.  Ungtss 00:01, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * It may be better to formulate the argument as an interpretation of Plato rather than Plato arguing, from the grave as it were, against God of the gaps. I am simply stating that Plato's argument is not necessarily involving a "God" at all. No doubt that the "final cause" has been declared by Christians to be a "God", but that is an opinion of Christians (and perhaps other theists) and not a neutral fact. The modern concept of theism definitely claims Plato as a follower (through the adoption of the Catholic Church of scholasticism, some have argued), but this doesn't make Plato a theist in the sense of Billy Graham or Mohammed.
 * Nobody said plato had to be a theist in the sense of billy graham or mohammed. but he was a theist, and a creationist.  those facts are beyond reasonable dispute.  Ungtss 00:21, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Ungtss, your insistence that this is a fact is completely unreasonable. Have you ever read a philosophy text on Plato written by a non-creationist who claimed that Plato was a creationist? If not, then you can be sure there is a level of opinion as to what exactly a "creationist" means. More than this, there is ongoing debate within the philosophical circles over whether Plato was "really" a theist in the sense that we talk about theists today. Do you absolutely refuse to admit that this is the case? Are you claiming there is no debate at all and that most people who study the subject hold your opinion? Joshuaschroeder 15:45, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * You are once again using unreasonably narrow definitions to support your arguments. in normal, everyday parlance, a theist is one who believes in God, and creationist is one who believes the earth and life were created.  Plato believed both.  of course plato wasn't a theist as we think of theists today.  by no means does that mean he wasn't a theist at all.  He believed in God, and therefore, according to the definitions used by normal people, he was a theist.  please, in discussion, use reasonable and rational definitions to avoid endless chatter about semantics.  thank you.  Ungtss 16:27, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

 * And you are wrong on your second account, Ungtss. "God of the gaps" isn't a "core" argument of philosophical naturalism. Note that such a statement appears nowhere in the article. In fact, such a claim is tantamount to claiming that philosophical naturalism defines itself only in an oppositional sense to theism. Of course, those who are naturalists would scoff at such a suggestion. God of the gaps is a device that may be used by philosophical naturalists in the context of arguing against theists, but it isn't a "core argument" by any means. Joshuaschroeder 00:12, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * strawman. i never said anything of the sort.  i said that god of the gaps is a core argument of philosophical naturalism, in that it is one often made by proponents of philosophical naturalism.  thus, proponents of teleology often find themselves composing arguments to challenge arguments of philosophical naturalism, including the god of the gaps.  are you really going to filibuster this one, schroeder?  Ungtss 00:21, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * It isn't a core argument at all because a core argument is something that is fundamental to the argument. God of the gaps clearly isn't.
 * You aren't being reasonable at all here, Ungtss. I am pointing out some really basic problems with the edit you made. I haven't changed your edit in an attempt to get your opinion on what you added first, but frankly your defense of the inclusion doesn't seem very dispassionate nor above reproach. Joshuaschroeder 15:45, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * all irrelevent. When proponents of teleology makes an argument against the god of the gaps on that basis, there is no error in reporting that fact.  thank you for leaving the edit to allow me to try and guess what would pacify you.  in the future, please list your precise concerns with my edit, so i can try to find a mutually agreeable workaround.  or better yet, try and identify your concerns and solve them in the text without threatening to delete it entirely.  thank you.  Ungtss 16:27, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Much better
Thanks, Ungtss, for changing your teleologist to Aquinas. A much better choice! Joshuaschroeder 15:48, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * thanks:). Ungtss 16:28, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

More sources?
Anyone have some sources or origin information about the "God of the gaps" argument? It should be included in this article. --02:37, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vrpPPV_yPY ("The God Of The Gaps (by Neil deGrasse Tyson)") (as of 29 July 2011) is a speech regarding this subject. Not a "source" per se, but maybe suitable as a "see also" link or "external links". It deals with how famous scientists throughout history have invoked God when they are at the limit of their knowledge, and that scientists later in history, once they figured out more about that particular field of science, did not invoke God any longer. Maybe it is interesting enough to include in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.216.131.100 (talk) 18:04, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Source info
The term goes back to Henry Drummond, who coined it in his Lowell Lectures on the Ascent of Man. In the 3rd edition (1894), Drummond writes:

"There are reverent minds who ceaselessly scan the fields of Nature and the books of Science in search of gaps -- gaps which they will fill up with God. As if God lived in gaps? What view of Nature or of Truth is theirs whose interest in Science is not in what it can explain but in what it cannot, whose quest is ignorance not knowledge, whose daily dread is that the cloud may lift, and who, as darkness melts from this field or from that, begin to tremble for the place of His abode? What needs altering in such finely jealous souls is at once their view of Nature and of God. Nature is God's writing, and can only tell the truth; God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If by the accumulation of irresistible evidence we are driven -- may not one say permitted -- to accept Evolution as God's method in creation, it is a mistaken policy to glory in what it cannot account for. The reason why men grudge to Evolution each of its fresh [page 334:] claims to show how things have been made is the groundless fear that if we discover how they are made we minimize their divinity. When things are known, that is to say, we conceive them as natural, on Man's level; when they are unknown, we call them divine -- as if our ignorance of a thing were the stamp of its divinity. If God is only to be left to the gaps in our knowledge, where shall we be when these gaps are filled up? And if they are never to be filled up, is God only to be found in the dis-orders of the world? Those who yield to temptation to reserve a point here and there for special divine interposition are apt to forget that this virtually excludes God from the rest of the process. If God appears periodically, he disappears periodically. If he comes upon the scene at special crises he is absent from the scene in the intervals. Whether is all-God or occasional-God the nobler theory? Positively, the idea of an immanent God, which is the God of Evolution, is infinitely grander than the occasional wonder-worker who is the God of the old theology. Negatively, the older view is not only the less worthy, but it is discredited by science. And as to facts, the daily miracle of a flower, the courses of the stars, the upholding and sustaining day by day of this great palpitating world, need a living Will as much as the creation of atoms at the first. We know growth is the method by which things are made in Nature, and we know no other method. We do not know that there are not other methods; but if there are we do not know them. Those cases which we do not know to be growths, we do not know to be anything else, and we may at least suspect them to be growths. Nor are they any the less miraculous [page 335:] because they appear to us as growths. A miracle is not something quick. The doings of these things may seem to us no miracle, nevertheless it is a miracle that they have been done. But, after all, the miracle of Evolution is not the process, but the product. Beside the wonder of the result, the problem of the process is a mere curiosity of Science."

(This added by on 15DEC05)

Lie to Children?
Why is lie-to-children under See Also? I fail to see the connection. Maybe there should be a one-sentence explanation of the connection? Tarheelcoxn 23:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Good point- it could be about how things like this are sometimes used to explain really complex things to kids, if you know what I mean

Occam's Razor
I don't understand the last sentence, which reads, "The god of the gaps argument also asserts that defaulting to a supernatural explanation brings up more questions than answers and requires many a priori assumptions, and therefore fails by Occam's Razor."

What's failing? The supernatural explanation? The sentence is awkward and doesn't flow with the rest of the paragraph. It might be as easy as changing to "supernatural explanations" if that's what is meant. Tarheelcoxn 23:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

 * I agree. The sentence seems meaningless.  User:Noisy | Talk 12:15, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Significant new edits in March, 2006
Hi Noisy: Thanks for your further edits and info in the article. I'd like to propose working out some language for this aricle that involves three sections rather than two. Offhand I suggest something like an intro defining rather than merely describing uses of the term-- it is definitely definable so let's please work out a definition of the term.

The God of the Gaps argument, the various forms of which are actually derivatives of the term/concept "God of the Gaps," should I believe be in a separate section. I propose showing what this argument is (ie, what form does it take, which I already attempted but you deleted that part completely), in addition to at least one example of a line of reasoning using the God of the Gaps (which is already there). One issue is that such a line of reasoning using the term/concept God of the Gaps, is different from what has come to be known today as a God of the Gaps argument (a logical fallacy similar to the argument from ignorance (see for instance the last section of Intelligent design

And it of course should be as NPOV as possible. I feel optimistic this can all be worked out and arrive at a yet better article to your satisfaction. Your thoughts?Kenosis 18:41, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Drummond's lecture seems a pretty comprehensive definition, so a few more quotes from the lecture should fit the bill. (He seems pretty good at getting his message over, so it seems redundant to try and better his words.)  I have to admit that I come from a position of ignorance, because I had't really read the Drummond reference given above, before, and only researched in response to your edits.  I think that any attempt to expand the definition beyond Drummond would risk straying into original research territory, and we don't really want to go there.

 * I think the intro is probably OK as it is (but the third para seems somewhat redundant). I think that there are two areas for expansion: one, the tracing of the original usage as identified by Drummond, as a criticism of fundamentalism; and the second tracing its co-option by evolutionists, and its parallels with the argument from ignorance, as you outline.  Once those two paths are traced, then a reappraisal of the intro may be more obvious.

 * Whichever way you proceed, I would caution that you provide citations (which you haven't yet), such as I have done with the Drummond reference. As I said, it's not really my area, so I'll just be your conscience, encouraging you to maintain NPOV, which is always going to be difficult with this phrase.

 * One final thing - please use the 'show preview' button. Noisy | Talk 00:05, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi: Fair enough, though I will need to get back to this later on. I'm sure we can parse out the difference between the central concept and the "god of the gaps argument" as it is increasingly seen today, so as to avoid unnecessary confusion between the two. I'm not sure I want to get fall into the fundamentalist/evolutionist debate one bit though, if I can avoid it. Take care for nowKenosis 00:31, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Noisy: I cleaned up the language in the intro just a bit, but without changing the existing content. I also added a third section with some description of the dominant modern usage of "God of the Gaps argument," with a couple of links.

I need some more time to find cites you requested to back up any proposals to revise the introductory paragraph to include a definition of some kind. Look forward to working it through with you and any other interested editors.Kenosis 16:10, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

(Diety) God of the Gaps
the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to replace the reference to "god" with diety. The whole point of this page is an explanation of a coined phrase. Granted the phrase was reference to god, but the idea from which the phrase was derived was about religion in general, hence the objective use of deity. I understand the wording of the phrase, but the reference is to religion in general, not just christianity. Please give me insight on this, I feel I should change it. Somerset219 04:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Somerset, thanks for the note on my page. Yes, in that last sentence of the first paragraph, I think "... so the role of God (or other diety or supernatural influence) is therefore confined to the 'gaps' in scientific explanations of nature." would work fine. It's your honors if you wish. .... Kenosis 05:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

 * The origin of the phrase seems to be explicitly Christian, and where it is now used in linkage with challenges to orthodox evolutionary theories the primary combatants are Christians. The only reason that attempts are made to widen the catchment area of those challenging evolution to include other religions are purely to try and misdirect.  And it seems it's working ...  Noisy | Talk 08:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I have no objection either way. Same principle even if there are other, shall we say, spiritual delegates? involved. If I were to have a bit of a preference, I'd leave it as is.
 * As Noisy points out, the roots of the phrase God of the Gaps are Christian. To which I might add, it applies to all theistic positions that cannot see their way clear to an immanent God, which in turn applies to all Abrahamic traditions.  Pantheistically based religions don't have this problem.  Deists don't have this problem.   Panentheists don't have this problem.  Only theists do, and that equates to the use of the word "God" however you translate it.  Thanks for the challenge to the reasoning here and for the need to think about it a bit more.  .. Kenosis 08:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

 * I do agree with the concept that it was Christian, however that argument is misguided. Being that christianity is the dominate religion, I'm sure no one is going to criticize any other religion without a broad audience. In other words Christianity was criticized because of its popular following, not necessarily because of Jesus, or anything else significant to Christianity. Somerset219 00:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Theistic position
The article calls the following a common theistic position:
 * anything that can be explained by human knowledge is not in the domain of God

That hardly sounds commonly theistic to me. Perhaps deistic, but not theistic. Srnec 04:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually you are correct Srnec, and thanks for noticing. The God of the gaps is more acurately characterized with the use of a phrase such as "anything that is explained about the natural world..." ... Kenosis 05:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

questions of science?
''explanations for many aspects of how the universe began, for the origin of life (abiogenesis), and for how certain species evolved stepwise rather than in continuous random fashion (morphogenesis), remain outstanding questions for which a scientific consensus has yet to form. The theistic position typically retains these within the domain of God.''

not only do i feel this is poorly worded but i also think its misleading and isn't the point of the article. The questions of abiogenesis and morphogensis are being addressed by the scientific community. the statement was rather in reguards to questions science cannot address, ie; Why the universe began or the origin of man. The point of this statement is to correlate the scientifically unknowable to a deity, as to what god of the gaps does. Somerset219 01:18, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Sure, and abiogenesis is still squarely within the domain of theism thus far, while morphogenesis is a toss-up depending on which cleric you talk to. At present I have no great objection to your version as long as the article continues to make the basic point about what the "God of the gaps" is.  So far, it's reasonably on track. Nonetheless, the question of why the universe exists is, in my opinion, a ridiculous one -- is it intended to refer to the anthropic principle? ... Kenosis 02:00, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

 * Does not the "theistic position" retain all in the domain of God? If he is the ultimate cause, creator, and sustainer of all and if he is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, then there is nothing outside his domain. This type of language seems to me to obscure the theistic position. What theists would say this: "somethings remain in the domain of God, others no longer"? Srnec 00:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

 * I agree with your logic Srnec, however the god of the gaps argument/ theistic position is based on an answer to a question. Like; the understanding of something is this way because my deity said so, which would not allow room for argument, or really any understanding. however your logic pertains to: since god is perfect, even though we may or may not understand, it is in his realm, which I agree on... the logic at least. However god of the gaps is based on questions of understanding, not the belief of theists. hope that makes some sense. Somerset219 02:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

 * I totally agree with you Kenosis, and Theism also refers to the anthropic principle, but I'm not sure what you mean about abiogenesis. From what i understood from the article it sounded scientific to me, I suppose the only way it could be construed as theistic is if you supplemented life with spirirt or soul. Or perhaps I'm a bit off base, because now that I think of it, wasn't protein created from "nothing" by some scientist? maybe i need to do some homework. At any rate, just out of curiosity, what do you mean by theistic? Somerset219 02:43, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Near-Complete Obscuration
I am writing an article on God of the Gaps, and hence have some familiarity with the term's origins and its common use. I am disturbed by what I read in this article, and in the discussion, which indicate that a few contributors truly understand the term, while a good many more, with no understanding of the term, are bullying the others into wording that is at least confusing and at worst manipulative.

The term, "God of the Gaps" was invented by a Christian (Drummond) to describe an erroroneous approach to Christian apologetics. Subsequent development of the term, as noted in the article, has been exclusively by Christians (Bonhoeffer, Coulson, Bube). There can be no argument that this is a technical term used by Christians, and the article should reflect that. There should be no discussion about whether Christian theologies are correct, only about what the term means and how it was invented.

The definition in [Theopedia] is correct, although some of the "point of view" will have to be cleaned up for Wikipedia. By contrast, the whole first paragraph here in Wikipedia is muddled and obscures the topic. I would try to fix it, but I can see from the history that everyone who tried to do so got mugged. One more example of how Wikipedia is fast losing its credibility. Mrdavenport 22:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Other sense
Am I right in thinking there is another slightly different sense of 'God of the gaps', namely a god who acts in the world via indeterminism - a theist can agree that the world follows the laws of physics but still allow (somewhat limited) intervention by god if he fiddles with e.g. random quantum interactions to bring about particular macroscopic results. If so, the article should say something about this. Ben Finn 16:36, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Criticism
A Criticism section is needed to allow balance (NPOV) to this article. The God of the Gaps argument relegates God to the leftovers of science: as scientific knowledge increases, the Dominion of God decreases. Judeo-christian theology disagrees: God is above nature and science. The Creator created all of the universe and the scientific and natural laws which people are discovering. This view holds that science studies God's gravity, God's plate techtonics, God's relativity, God's chemistry,etc. Theistic evolutionists hold that people are a product of God's evolution. (appropriate citations are available) Pkgx (talk) 16:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Is the 'argument from ignorance' criticism a false dichotomy? Or perhaps an example of 'begging the question'? The criticism seems to imply things on its own, like trying to define specifics of what 'god' is and is not. Maybe I'm getting the wrong impression. 12.206.232.172 (talk) 16:48, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Near-Complete Obscuration
I just want to offer my thanks to various and sundry who have succeeded in making this article much more accurate. Mrdavenport (talk) 02:33, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Lead Paragraph
The lead paragraph makes no sense. God of the Gaps is not an argument for the existance of God. It is an attempt to put limits on God. To clarify this (with citation), I have restored a previous improved version. Grantmidnight (talk) 19:53, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I've removed the irrelevant POV statement from the first paragraph of the lead about the god of the gaps argument not being an argument for the existence of God. The rest is reasonable. And yes, I suppose the article could use citations, though the cites are woven into the article text, e.g. Drummond, Bonhoeffer, and Bube. So I'm inclined to remove the WP:NOR template and leave the refimprove template. ... Kenosis (talk) 20:48, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Synthesis
This paragraph is riddled with editors' own assessments of Bube's writings (obvious examples bolded, more marginal one in italics). Further, its sourcing isn't particularly clear. Is all of this sourced to Man Come Of Age: Bonhoeffer’s Response To The God-Of-The-Gaps? Or is some of it sourced to the unnamed "1978 article"? Given that the book came first, what is it "in far greater detail" than? I came across this paragraph because I was doing a major rewrite of the article on Bube, and wanted to include this material -- but decided against it because the whole thing was too muddled and too non-compliant with policy. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 05:02, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I will WP:AGF and assume that "the accuracy of" the claim that "[Bube] articulated the concept in far greater detail than did Bonhoeffer" is "is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge." (per WP:PSTS) HrafnTalkStalk(P) 05:49, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

(Of course this isn't helped by the fact that we don't currently have a source cited for what Bonhoeffer actually "articulated". HrafnTalkStalk(P) 06:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC) )

 * The exact reference to Bonhoeffer is in the "Bibliography": Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997 (ISBN 978-0-684-83827-4) "Letter to Eberhard Bethge", 29 May 1944, pages 310-312. This may be a rather unconvenient way of making the reference, rather than in a footnote. By the way, the exact word that Bonhoeffer uses is "stopgap" (I believe that the German is "Lückenbußer"), and I would complain that that is not exactly the same thing. I agree that this could use some reworking. TomS TDotO (talk) 13:42, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

 * I think the German aspect undercuts the "is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge" (as verification would require a bilingual person). Also, I think WP:NONENG applies (and both the German original, and a translation, of what Bonhoeffer said is therefore needed). HrafnTalkStalk(P) 14:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Double Criticism
The position described as "God of the Gaps" is not really supported by anybody. It is a poorly written article which is receiving criticism from both sides.
 * - One criticism is from those who oppose it as an attempt to prove God. Both from a strictly logical perspective and from a theological perspective, the argument is flawed.
 * - A different criticism is from those who oppose it as a way to limit God to the things which science has not yet answered. To many theologians, God is Omnipotent and thus is over science, over nature, and over all: Things addressed well by science are still God's work.

A better flow of the article would be to state the general proposition of God of the Gaps followed by two separate sections of criticism. Rlsheehan (talk) 14:43, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * According to the original reliable sources, e.g., Henry Drummond, who appears to have coined the phrase, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Richard Bube, who used the phrase in their published philosophical/theological writings, it's used as an observation about a simplistic theology that places God in the gaps of knowledge-- in the unknown-- a fairly widespread tendency. It's inherently a criticism of this tendency. So yes, of course it generally isn't supported by those who use it, but rather is intended by its a critical observation of others' views. The "sides", as you say, really aren't that clear at all. If somebody has a better way to present this that's verifiable to reliable sources and has a chance of achieving WP:Consensus, I'm all ears. ... Kenosis (talk) 17:23, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * No, your "widpread tendency" in "simplistic theology" is not widespread. You just deleted a relavent citation on apologetics that does not include "god of the gaps" as a valid argument for God. Serious theologians do not support God of the Gaps as an argument.  Where are the notable citations which suggest that they do?  Rlsheehan (talk) 18:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually (1) the phrase has nothing at all to do with, as you say, an "argument for God". Though you're right that serious theologians do not, at least as general tendency, view God as residing only in the "unknown". (2) The phrase "God-of-the-gaps argument" refers to an assertion which attributes unexplained phenomena to supernatural causes. I just added two of the many reliable sources that use the phrases "God of the gaps" and "argument from ignorance" synonymously. But it's definitely not an "argument for [the existence of] God" to begin with. (3) Though Kreeft and Tacelli's Handbook of Christian Apologetics discusses arguments for the existence of God it doesn't deal with the expression "God of the gaps" at all-- not even one mention of it, AFAICT. The sentence I removed which cited to Kreeft and Tacelli was original research, somebody's personal synthesis, and the source did not reflect the statement in the article. in other words, it's not wrong to say that theologians do not regard the "God of the gaps argument" as a valid argument for the existence of God, as was asserted in the sentence I removed, but the citation did not support the statement. ... Kenosis (talk) 19:48, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Having said the above, I would definitely appreciate seeing a reliable source specifically supporting the assertion that serious theologians do not use "God-of-the-gaps" arguments as arguments for the existence of God. (I now see your point better than I did before, Rlsheehan.) ... Kenosis (talk) 20:14, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, the article currently says that God of the gaps is used as an argument for God: "The gap is filled by acts of a god (and therefore also proves, or helps to prove, the existence of said god)." The external links to Freethoughtpedia and Freethought zone (both not-notable sources) claim it to be an argument for God - - then challenge its use.  Some people attack the Gaps position for allowing any room for God.
 * The argument is not used by serious theologians, though it is difficult to prove a negative. Compilations of apolgetics do not, to my knowledge, include God of the Gaps as a valid argument.
 * The concept of "God of the gaps" is attacked by several serious theologiens. Drummond and Bonhoeffer are quoted in the article.  Omnipotence and Omniscience  are often used to describe a monotheistic God: There is no gap in God.  Many religions do not see a Conflict thesis in the Relationship between religion and science. For example: "We recognize science as a legitimate interpretation of God’s natural world."
 * The article currently wanders among many positions and needs a serious clean-up and rewrite. Rlsheehan (talk) 17:32, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Offhand, I'm inclined to remove that part of the text. While it's common for folks to assume that events with unknown causes are "acts of God", I've never heard it as an argument for the existence of God either. If somebody has a reliable source where it has been used in this way, kindly point us to such source(s). ... Kenosis (talk) 18:11, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
 * And, the main reason the article "wanders among many positions" is that there are many published positions to wander among. We can, however, be reasonably sure that Drummond, Bonhoeffer, Coulson, and Bube are on the same page philosophically and theologically. The characteristic of "wander[ing] among many positions can be seen in one place in the article, which is in the "criticisms" section which wanders among positions that variously support the four philosopher-theologians just mentioned, and also in at least one instance offers various criticisms of various usages of the words "God of the gaps". Which is why I argued to eliminate that section. ... Kenosis (talk) 18:25, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Criticism section
the reason given for deletion of the section:

"These are not criticisms of the concept, but rather criticisms of the view criticized by Bonhoeffer, Bube, et al"

isn't quite clear.

The section was indeed criticism of the concept.ReaverFlash (talk) 21:27, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

 * The entire article discusses critical perspectives on "God of the gaps" views and "God-of-the-gaps" arguments-- indeed the phrase "God of the gaps" is inherently a criticism of a view or type of argument. It was coined as a criticism of a view, and used by Bonhoeffer, Coulson, Bube and others as a criticism of a view. Thus a section titled "criticisms" is inappropriate. If there are any reliable sources that proffer supportive views of "God of the gaps", please bring them to our attention and perhaps it might then be appropriate to set up a section on, say "defenses of the view" or "defenses of the God-of-the-gaps argument". Also, I've re-titled the section previously called "Usage as argument" which incorrectly described the content of that section. Pending input of other editors, I changed the section title to Usage in referring to a type of argument. ... Kenosis (talk) 22:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

It is perfectly reasonable to have a criticism of a critical perspective.ReaverFlash (talk) 22:20, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Sure, except that they're not criticisms of the critical perspective, but rather are on the same page, so to speak, as Drummond, Bonhoeffer, Coulson, and Bube, who also criticized the "God of the gaps" view. ... Kenosis (talk) 22:26, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Although the term might be only be used by those who do not support the view, it is still important to have a criticism section. The "God of the gaps" view itself is not a criticism. ReaverFlash (talk) 00:32, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh please. Actually, the term itself is inherently derogatory. Show me one reasonably reliable source that uses the words in a way not intended as a criticism-- just one. ... Kenosis (talk) 01:05, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I think my work is done here for now. Bye. I'll get back to this when I have a chance to more thoroughly review what are presently footnotes 4, 5, and possibly 6. The statements in the article don't even reasonably reflect what's in the sources given in footnotes 4 and 5. What a mess. ... Kenosis (talk) 01:07, 9 July 2009 (UTC) NB: These footnote numbers have changed, as the criticism section is now at the bottom of the article until some better sense can be made of that conceptual mess. ... Kenosis (talk) 19:20, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

POV of "Summary"
The "Summary" section--which is really just an extended quotation, but I'll leave that issue to others--seems to me to be slanted very strongly to the point of serving as a theistic (and Christian in particular) apologia. I'm not sure it actually adds anything of value and might even obscure the actual substance of the page. Perhaps it could be integrated into the body of the article?--Hannibal V Constantine (talk) 16:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

 * This article was poorly written, and it did not have a clear statement of what "god of the gaps" was. Most of the discussion was various positions against it; although the meaning of the phrase was never well defined.
 * This defining quotation is a clear statement of god of the gaps by a noted theologian. This is a theological issue so a quotation by a theologian is appropriate.  There is not a POV problem because there is expansive criticism by both theologians and by atheists.
 * This summary quotation is needed to help clarify the article. Rlsheehan (talk) 00:53, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Tag removed: no interest or support. Rlsheehan (talk) 18:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Definition
I find that the below definition of 'God of the gaps' is much more accurate. ref - http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/general/bldef_godgaps.htm

'The phrase "god of the gaps" is used to describe the attempts by some people to justify the rationality of theism by relying upon "gaps" in scientific knowledge. In other words, because science cannot explain some event or object, then it is reasonable to believe that a god is responsible for the event or object.'

Shall we change it to accordingly to this one? - -Abhishikt 21:21, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No for two reasons:
 * 1 - This is a definition proposed at an atheist web site. They are not a reliable source for a theistic position.
 * 2 - The blockquote by Harris says "No significant Christian group has believed this view".  Who are the reliable accademic sources who can be referenced?
 * Rlsheehan (talk) 13:57, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

 * About.com no more an 'athiest website' than Reference.com [[User:Jebus989|

 Jeb us  989 ]]★ 15:53, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The section of About.com is: "Agnosticism / Atheism".Rlsheehan (talk) 16:19, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

 * 1. about.com is not atheist website. The term 'God of the gaps'. As this term is related to agnosticism / atheism, it is just present in that section in about.com's website, which doesn't imply that it is a biased definition.
 * 2. I consider that quote as POV from religious side, definitely not a neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abhishikt (talk • contribs) 17:57, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

This is a very poorly written article at this time. I welcome efforts to clarify it. We need Reliable Sources (not about.com) that state what God of the Gaps is. One statement is now provided by Harris. If you think that finding God only in the gaps of scientific knowledge is a theistic or Christian position, please find appropriate references. This could be in the form of position papers or creeds of major denominations or scholarly published works. So far, I have not found any theologian who supports limiting God to the gaps of human knowledge. Respected theologians do not try to use God of the Gaps reasoning as a proof of God.Rlsheehan (talk) 19:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * True that it isn't ordinarily a trap into which the most theologically sensitive individuals (including "respected theologians") tend to fall. But we often see preachers and writers of religious apologetic literature falling into the trap in making their arguments to potential converts and/or to active participants in their forms of worship, not to even mention countless laypersons' personal views of God. On occasion, theologians and large churches have fallen into it too. "Young-Earth creationism" is among the classic examples, a view of God set into a large gap in scientific knowledge, but a view which is today demonstrably false. ... Kenosis (talk) 17:05, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Clarity on What God of the Gaps Is
As many people have been mentioning, this article, and particularly the opening paragraph, has once again become muddled. The term "God of the Gaps" was invented by Christian theologians (all the original references: Drummond, Bonhoeffer, Coulson, Bube are Christian theologians and apologists) as a pejorative term for poor theological arguments. Although the redirection gloss in italics correctly identifies the term as a "theological perspective" the main article suggests that it is a form of religion ( 'a view of God as existing in the "gaps" '). As Kenosis says, above, no branch of Christianity would admit to such a belief -- they sometimes use such arguments unintentionally but when it is pointed out they generally fix the arguments.

For Christians (and Christians own the term - see above) therefore, the phrase "God of the Gaps" is entirely equivalent to the to the term Begging the question which is owned by logicians. Note how that article begins:

 * Begging the question ... is a type of logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proven is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise.

A good article about God of the Gaps should thus begin in a parallel way:

 * God of the gaps ... is a type of theological fallacy in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be proofs of God's existence.

This sense of the meaning is not introduced until the third segment of the article called "Usage in referring to a type of argument." Furthermore in that Section the wording "can refer to a position" suggests that this is not the only way that it is used. But there are no citations showing where it can be used in any other way.

Atheists ??
Given that the term "God of the Gaps" was invented by Christian theologians, and used exclusively by Christian theologians in all cited references (which go up to 1978) this term has no apparent atheistic heritage. There have certainly been cases in the past where terms originating in one group have been appropriated by another, so it is possible that Atheists have picked up the term "God of the Gaps" and given it their own meaning. But I see no citations to that effect so I must assume this is not the case. In fact the words "Atheist" and "Atheism" do not occur even once in the article. And Christians certainly continue to use the term (see for example Theopedia).

Furthermore, the article was until recently included under the category "Arguments against the existence of God." I hope everyone sees the logical fallacy in this: just because God of the Gaps arguments are poor proofs for the existence of God (as the above theologians point out) does not mean that they offer any evidence at all for the non-existence of God.

Which raises the question (note I did not say "begs the question" !!): Why is this article labelled as part of a series on Atheism? That would be akin to inserting into the article on Memes a huge sidebar labelling it as part of a series on Christianity. Richard Dawkins would not be amused.

How to Fix It
There are two possible ways to fix it:

 * If no-one comes up with references indicating that atheists have co-opted the term
 * The Atheist side-bar should be removed
 * The opening paragraph should be edited to resemble the "Begging the Question: article, as described above.

 * If in fact the Atheists have co-opted the term:
 * The opening paragraph should explain that the term was used exclusively by Christians for 100 years, but has now also been adopted by Atheists, who have given in a new alternate meaning. The two meanings should then be summarized.
 * The structure of the main article should compare and explicitly contrast the divergent usages of the two groups
 * Citations should be given to Atheist articles

I would make these changes now, but I can see in the revision record that attempts to wrestle this article back to reality have been resisted in force. I may however give it a try after leaving a few days to see whether there are relevant new citations (as that will determine the structure). Mrdavenport (talk) 07:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Started
OK, I have replaced the first paragraph as follows (I am leaving a copy here so that it is more easily discussed later, after it has been deleted from the main article):

 * God of the gaps is a type of theological fallacy in which gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God's existence. The term was invented by Christian theologians not to discredit theism but rather to discourage reliance on teleological arguments for God's existence.

I have carefully made sure that each phrase is thoroughly supported by the references quoted in the main body of the article. I have left the Stanford Teleology reference even though it is redundant because of the Wiki link to teleology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrdavenport (talk • contribs) 15:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Rlsheehan

 * No important theologian uses gaps in human knowledge as a proof of God's existence. That would be relegating God to human limitations.  Please revise your edit.  Rlsheehan (talk) 19:09, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Response to Rlsheehan

 * I don't see how theological methods of proof can ever be seen to "relegate God to human limitations." A classic God of the Gaps argument would be "There was a loud boom and a bright flash of light; no creature could possibly have done that; it must have been God; so now I have proof that God is real."  That might have been a convincing argument for peasants in England in 1066.  Does it relegate God to human limitations?  Au contraire - it attributes to God super-human capabilities.  Please explain what you meant by your comment.

 * Note that my edit uses the phrasing "is evidence or proof of" not just "is proof of." This is an important distinction, because it encompasses a larger group of theologians.  I'll review a few:

The Watchmaker analogy was a very influential God of the Gaps argument, stemming from Cicero in the first century BC, but rising to prominence with William Paley in the early 1800s. Paley argues explicitly that the design features that we see can only be explained by "an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use". Drummond (I have his book on my shelf) was explicitly responding to Paley and of course Darwin.

The Teleological Arguments all point to elements of creation that could not be explained by science and thus prove that there is a God. Click on the link (that's why I put the link in the article).

Thomas Aquinas (who I think counts as an "important theologian"!) argued that because there is order and predictability in inanimate objects, which clearly cannot create order for themselves, there must be an intelligent being ordering them: We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is directed by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

Even Isaac Newton (who, more than anyone previous, started plugging the gaps) inferred from the variety that he saw in creation, evidence for a creator: We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final cause: we admire him for his perfections; but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion: for we adore him as his servants; and a god without dominion, providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature. Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, could produce no variety of things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing.

The "evidence for belief" that Francis Collins refers to in his 2006 book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief is man's "knowledge of right and wrong." The book argues that such moral thought cannot be explained by science and thus is "evidence for belief" (aka "evidence for the existence of God"). This has been criticized as a God of the Gaps argument.

Thus the view that certain features of the observed world, inexplicable by natural philosophy, are proof of a creator, were foundational to Christianity and continue to crop up. These views are seldom held these days explicitly because a) science has been filling the gaps, and b) theologians recognized the flaw in this type of apologetics, and labelled it "God of the Gaps" thinking.

Furthermore, atheists argue against God's existence by stating that God of the Gaps thinking is foundational to theism, and continues to be influential. See for example http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/gaps.html, from which the following quote is taken The pattern is unmistakable. "See! You can't explain this!" they proclaim, pointing triumphantly to places where our knowledge is incomplete, as though scientists claimed omniscience. "And you never will be able to! That proves our god is at work!"

Have I misunderstood your concerns? Mrdavenport (talk) 21:59, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

God Living in the Gaps
Perhaps part of the confusion is the metaphorical language being used by Drummond "gaps which they will fill up with God. As if God lived in the gaps?" He is not saying here that people actually believed that God "lived" in the gaps. It is a figure of speech, like a counsellor saying "why do you live in the past?" What Drummond was criticising (as is clear in his book) is that people should not build their faith on evidence from gaps in human knowledge (e.g. "I know that God exists because science cannot explain how the human eye could have come about by accident"). Rather people should equally see God's handiwork in those parts of the natural world that science has explained (e.g. "An excellent scientific understanding of the evolution of the eye is emerging, which reveals God's handiwork" or something like that).

Mrdavenport (talk) 23:46, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

More about the origin of the term
I read the Wikipedia article about Charles Coulson and found a reference to an article by Adrian Hough: Not a Gap in Sight: Fifty Years of Charles Coulson's Science and Christan Belief. Theology 2006, 109:21-27. Hough (in ref. 9) in turn cites the book by C. Southgate et al.: God, Humanity and the Cosmos: A Textbook in Science and Religion (T & T Clark 1999), page 247. Hough writes (p. 24)

 * The concept was certainly already present, but according to Southgate it was Coulson who devised the actual terminology which we now use and which has been adapted to provide the title of the present article. The idea that Coulson coined this phrase is supported by the fact that he used it without reference or explanation and as a natural self-explanatory part of his argument.

I don't see that this is contradicted by what we know about Drummond's writing about minds "in search of gaps - gaps which they will fill up with God".

Bonhoeffer's mention of the concept were in private letters written in the German language. I don't have access to the original but quote from Bube's 1971 paper which presents the translation: "How wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge." This echoes Drummond but is different from Coulson's "God of the gaps".

Coulson's book was first published in 1955 by Oxford University Press and then in 1958 as a paperback by Fontana Books. The latter edition has a different page numbering, an updated preface and promotional quotes from British reviews of the first edition. My own copy is from 1964, marked as the 5th impression of the Fontana edition. This shows that Coulson's book was widely read in Britain when it was new. As Hough writes, it is largely forgotten today.

I don't have access to the book by Southgate et al., nor to earlier non-scientific articles by Coulson. Still, I find it likely that Charles Coulson was the one who coined the term "God of the gaps" for a theological fallacy that had been perceived and discussed previously by Drummond and Bonhoeffer. Roufu (talk) 14:51, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

- Excellent analysis, Roufu. Thanks. Mrdavenport (talk) 13:39, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Jps's Complaints
JpS is reverting my edits, but instead of discussing here has posted his complain at the this link at the Fringe Theory Notice Board. Editors wishing to review the issue or participate must apparently go there instead of here. —GodBlessYou2 (talk) 19:39, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on God of the gaps. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20071024045851/http://www.newdualism.org/papers/R.Larmer/Gaps.htm to http://www.newdualism.org/papers/R.Larmer/Gaps.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 18:02, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Date of Ascent of Man
Drummond died in 1897 and the publication of his Ascent of Man is dated 1904. We say that a reference "goes back to" him. It is appropriate to give the year of that year, that is, what is the date of the lecture? TomS TDotO (talk) 08:55, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:God of the gaps


text:
West Melbourne

West Melbourne may refer to:

 * West Melbourne, Florida, United States
 * West Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: West Melbourne


text:
Dominic Chianese

Dominic Chianese (born February 24, 1931) is an American actor, singer, and musician. He is best known for his roles as Junior Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos (1999–2007), Johnny Ola in The Godfather Part II (1974), and Leander Whitlock in Boardwalk Empire (2011–2013).

Early life
Chianese was born in the Bronx borough of New York City on February 24, 1931. His father was a bricklayer. His paternal grandfather was Italian and left Afragola for New York in 1904. Chianese graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1948.

Career
After a decade of attending college and appearing in off-Broadway theatre, Chianese attended his first professional acting class at HB Studio in Manhattan with renowned teacher Walt Witcover. His first Broadway show was Oliver! in 1965. He has continued to perform on Broadway, off Broadway, and in regional theatre. To supplement income during the periods where he struggled to find roles, he played rhythm guitar and sang in taverns and restaurants while hosting open mic nights at Gerdes Folk City in Greenwich Village.

Chianese's first television role came when George C. Scott recommended him for the series East Side/West Side. In 1974, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola cast him as Johnny Ola in The Godfather Part II, beginning a film career that would see him appear several times alongside Al Pacino in films such as Dog Day Afternoon (1975), ...And Justice For All (1979), and Looking for Richard (1996). He also co-starred with Pacino onstage. Before being cast in The Godfather Part II, he worked for the Drug Commission of New York as a recreational worker in rehab, where he gave guitar lessons to women who were serving time for drug crimes.

In terms of singing, Chianese is a tenor. He released an album titled Hits in 2000, featuring him singing American and Italian songs. He performed Salvatore Cardillo's sentimental classic "Core 'ngrato" ("Ungrateful Heart") on the third season finale of The Sopranos, "Army of One". In 2003, along with AOL Music, he released a second album titled Ungrateful Heart, which features 16 classic Neapolitan songs. In the 2000s, he played in a mandolin quartet every week at the Hotel Edison.

Chianese appeared as a guest actor on the HBO series Boardwalk Empire for three seasons as Leander Whitlock, a retired lawyer and power broker. In December 2018, he and co-author Matthew Sargent published his biography Twelve Angels: The Women Who Taught Me How to Act, Live, and Love.

Personal life
In 2010, Chianese received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in recognition of his humanitarian efforts.

title: Dominic Chianese


text:
Leslie Bricusse

Leslie Bricusse OBE (29 January 1931 – 19 October 2021) was a British composer, lyricist, and playwright who worked on theatre musicals and wrote theme music for films. He was best known for writing the music and lyrics for the films Doctor Dolittle; Goodbye, Mr. Chips; Scrooge; Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory; Tom and Jerry: The Movie; the titular James Bond film songs "Goldfinger" and "You Only Live Twice"; "Can You Read My Mind? (Love Theme from Superman)" (with John Williams) from Superman; and "Le Jazz Hot!" (with Henry Mancini) from Victor/Victoria.

Early life and education
Born in Pinner, Middlesex (now in the London Borough of Harrow), Bricusse was educated at University College School in London and then at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he studied Modern and Medieval Languages. While at Cambridge, he was Secretary of Footlights between 1952 and 1953 and Footlights President during the following year. It was during his college drama career that he began working for Beatrice Lillie.

Career
In the 1960s and 1970s, Bricusse enjoyed a fruitful partnership with Anthony Newley. They wrote the musical Stop the World – I Want to Get Off (1961), which was the basis of a 1966 film version and featured the Grammy winning Song of the Year “What Kind of Fool Am I?” Also in collaboration with Newley, Bricusse wrote the show The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd (1965) and music for the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), based on the children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. For the latter, they received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song Score. When he collaborated with Newley, the two men referred to themselves as the team of "Brickman and Newburg", with "Newburg" concentrating mainly on the music and "Brickman" on the lyrics. Ian Fraser often did their arrangements.

Working solely as a lyricist, he collaborated with composer Cyril Ornadel on Pickwick (1963), based on Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers, a successful vehicle for Harry Secombe. His later collaborators included Henry Mancini (Victor/Victoria in 1982 and Tom and Jerry: The Movie in 1992) and John Williams (Home Alone in 1990 and Hook in 1991).

As composer and lyricist he scored the film Doctor Dolittle (1967), which flopped at the box-office but received an Academy Award for Best Original Song ("Talk to the Animals"). He also scored the film Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969).

Sammy Davis Jr. had hits with two songs by Bricusse, "What Kind of Fool Am I?" (from Stop the World - I Want to Get Off) and "The Candy Man" (from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory) which became a No. 1 hit.

Other recording artists who recorded successful versions of his songs include Nina Simone ("Feeling Good"), Matt Monro and Frank Sinatra ("My Kind of Girl"), Shirley Bassey ("Goldfinger"), Harry Secombe ("If I Ruled the World"), Nancy Sinatra ("You Only Live Twice"), The Turtles ("A Guide for the Married Man"), Maureen McGovern ("Can You Read My Mind"), and Diana Krall ("When I Look in Your Eyes").

Bricusse partnered with George Tipton to write the opening theme of the American television sitcom It's a Living.

Pure Imagination: The World of Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, devised and directed by Bruce Kimmel, opened at the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California, on 7 December 2013. In 2015, it went to the St James Theatre, London.

On 29 October 2001, he was awarded the OBE for services to the film industry and the theatre from Queen Elizabeth II at a Buckingham Palace investiture ceremony.

In 2015, he released a memoir entitled Pure Imagination: A Sorta-Biography, with a foreword by Elton John.

Personal life
Bricusse lived in California and in London, in an apartment overlooking the River Thames. He was married to Yvonne "Evie" Romain, an actor. They had a son, Adam.

Death
Bricusse died in his sleep in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, on 19 October 2021, aged 90.

Musicals

 * Stop the World – I Want to Get Off (with Anthony Newley) (1961) – includes "Once in a Lifetime" and "What Kind of Fool Am I?"
 * Pickwick – with Cyril Ornadel (1963)
 * The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd (with Newley) (1965) – includes "Who Can I Turn to (When Nobody Needs Me)?" and "Feeling Good"
 * Doctor Dolittle (1967) – includes "Talk to the Animals"
 * Sweet November (with Newley) (1968)
 * Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969)
 * Scrooge (with Ian Fraser; Herbert W. Spencer, 1970) – includes "Thank You Very Much"
 * Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (with Newley, 1971) - includes “Pure Imagination” and “The Candy Man”
 * Beyond the Rainbow (lyrics only, 1978)
 * The Good Old Bad Old Days (with Newley, 1974)
 * Peter Pan (television, with Newley, 1976)
 * Victor Victoria (film with Henry Mancini, 1982)
 * Babes in Toyland (1986 film) (with Newley, 1986)
 * Sherlock Holmes: The Musical – book, music, and lyrics by Bricusse (1989)
 * Hook (with John Williams) (1991) – includes "When You're Alone"
 * Jekyll & Hyde (lyrics only, 1990/1994/1997)
 * Scrooge (1992 stage musical)
 * Victor/Victoria (1995 Broadway musical)
 * Doctor Dolittle (1998 stage musical)
 * Cyrano (2009, Tokyo, with Frank Wildhorn)
 * Sammy (2009) – Old Globe Theatre

Songs
Source:

 * "Out of Town" with Robin Beaumont (1956)
 * "My Kind of Girl" (1961)
 * "What Kind of Fool Am I?" with Anthony Newley (1963)
 * "Who Can I Turn To" with Anthony Newley (1964)
 * "Feeling Good" with Anthony Newley (1964)
 * "Goldfinger" (with John Barry and Anthony Newley) from Goldfinger (1964)
 * "A Guide for the Married Man" (with John Williams) from the film A Guide for the Married Man (1967)
 * "You Only Live Twice" (with Barry) from You Only Live Twice (1967)
 * "Two for the Road" (with Henry Mancini) from Two for the Road (1967)
 * "Talk to the Animals" from Doctor Dolittle (1967)
 * "Your Zowie Face" for film In Like Flint, music by Jerry Goldsmith (1967)
 * "Fill The World With Love" from Goodbye Mr. Chips (1968) originally sung by Petula Clark and also popularised by Richard Harris
 * "You and I" from Goodbye Mr. Chips (1968) sung by Petula Clark, Barbara Cook, and Michael Feinstein
 * "Thank You Very Much" from Scrooge (1970)
 * "Candy Man" and "Pure Imagination" (with Newley) from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
 * "Can You Read My Mind (Love Theme)" (with John Williams) from Superman (1978)
 * "Move Em Out" (with Henry Mancini) from Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978)
 * "Le Jazz Hot!" with Henry Mancini from Victor/Victoria (1982)
 * "Making Toys", "Every Christmas Eve/Santa's Theme (Giving)", "It's Christmas Again", "Patch! Natch!" and "Thank You, Santa!" (with Henry Mancini) from Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)
 * "Life in a Looking Glass" (with Henry Mancini) from That's Life! (1986)
 * "Somewhere in My Memory", "Star of Bethlehem" from Home Alone (with John Williams) (1990)
 * "When You're Alone", "Pick 'Em Up", "We Don't Wanna Grow Up" from Hook (with John Williams) (1991)
 * "Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas", "Christmas Star" (with John Williams) in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
 * "The Perfect Song" (with Andrew Lloyd Webber) for Michael Ball
 * "Grandma's Lullaby", "Who Needs You?" and "It Takes All Sorts" in The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists (1996)

Awards
Source:

 * Academy Awards
 * Best Original Song, 1968 – "Talk to the Animals" from Doctor Dolittle
 * Best Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Adaptation Score, 1982 - Victor/Victoria
 * Grammy Awards
 * Song of the Year, 1963 – "What Kind of Fool Am I"
 * Songwriters Hall of Fame

Nominations
Source:
 * Tony Awards
 * Best Musical, 1963 – Stop the World – I Want to Get Off
 * Best Score, 1963 – "Stop the World – I Want to Get Off"
 * Best Score of a Musical, 1963 – "Stop the World – I Want to Get Off"
 * Best Score of a Musical, 1965 – "The Roar of Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd"
 * Best Book of a Musical, 1997 – "Jekyll & Hyde"
 * Academy Awards
 * Best Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment, 1967 – Doctor Dolittle
 * Best Score of a Musical Picture (Original or Adaptation), 1969 – Goodbye, Mr. Chips
 * Best Original Song Score, 1970 – Scrooge
 * Best Original Song, 1970 – "Thank You Very Much" from Scrooge
 * Best Adaptation and Original Song Score, 1971 – Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory'
 * Best Original Song, 1986 – "Life in a Looking Glass" from That's Life!
 * Best Original Song, 1990 – "Somewhere in My Memory" from Home Alone
 * Best Original Song, 1991 – "When You're Alone" from Hook
 * Golden Raspberry Award
 * Worst 'Original' Song, 1986 – "Life in a Looking Glass" (lyrics) from That's Life!

title: Leslie Bricusse


text:
Stable set

Stable set may refer to:

 * Independent set (graph theory) in graph theory, a set of vertices no two of which are adjacent
 * Invariant set, said to be "stable" under a mapping or transformation
 * Stable manifold or stable set, in dynamical systems, the set of points leading up to an attractor
 * Von Neumann-Morgenstern solution or stable set, in cooperative games, a set of alternatives satisfying the internal and external stability conditions

title: Stable set


text:
Talk:List of self-help organizations

Untitled
I suggest to split-up the content of this entry into various entries. I'd look for self-help organizations either in articles describing their common purpose, like alcoholism for AA, or common structure, like 12-step programs for 12-Step-Programs. Not sure it it'd make more sense to list the groups directly in the articles or open up separate lists. But for now it's a good place to start collecting... - 145.254.52.183 22:30, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

 * Humour and Twelve Steps :-) Singles,Apple, XP

Details re minor edit: Movement of GROW into 12-Step Recovery section.
GROW's 12 Steps are available within it's wiki article, along with a description of their link to Alcoholics Anonymous: GROW. Gaianchild (talk) 05:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

title: Talk:List of self-help organizations


text:
Talk:Node-to-node data transfer

This article talks a lot about things that come before and after channel coding. (I'm just as guilty, for adding a summary of the "modulation" step.) Shouldn't we trim this article down -- focus on channel coding -- and move all the other text to some other article that gives an overview of the whole process ? Perhaps telecommunication ? --DavidCary 30 June 2005 14:32 (UTC)
 * There wasn't really anything left in this article when the overview had been taken out, so I renamed it accordingly and made the old name (Channel coding) into a redirect to Error correction and detection. --PrologFan | Talk 22:36, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Deletion of this article?
Since the article is an orphan, and the term is not very common in research papers (only 32 hits in scholar.google.com), I suggest that the should be deleted. Many other more popular articles cover the topic, e.g. data link, data transmission, channel (communications) and point-to-point (telecommunications). Mange01 (talk) 20:31, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
 * You possibly know that your suggestion can be implemented (preferably after some discussion) by deciding on the best article (i.e. which of your four), then merging information from here to there (with an edit summary stating that the text comes from Node-to-node data transfer, including the link). Then replace this article with a redirect to the target. If you have a specific suggestion, I will think more carefully about it. The proper procedure is to place Merge to on this article, and Merge from on the other. Johnuniq (talk) 00:39, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

title: Talk:Node-to-node data transfer


text:
Lunchbox

A lunch box  (alt. spelling lunchbox)   refers to a hand-held container used to transport food, usually to work or to school. It is commonly made of metal or plastic, is reasonably airtight and often has a handle for carrying.

In the United States
In the United States a lunchbox may also be termed a lunch pail, lunch bucket or lunch tin, either as single words or paired.

The concept of a food container has existed for a long time, but it was not until people began using tobacco tins to carry meals in the early 20th century, followed by the use of lithographed images on metal, that the containers became a staple of youth, and a marketable product. It has most often been used by schoolchildren to take packed lunches, or a snack, from home to school. The most common modern form is a small case with a clasp and handle, often printed with a colorful image that can either be generic or based on children's television shows or films. Use of lithographed metal to produce lunch boxes in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s gave way in the 1990s to use of injection-molded plastic.

A lunch kit comprises the actual "box" and a matching vacuum bottle. However, popular culture has more often embraced the singular term lunch box, which is now most commonly used.

With increasing industrialization resulting in Americans working outside the home in factories, it became unfeasible to go home to lunch every day, thus it was necessary to have something to protect and transport a meal. Since the 19th century, American industrial workers have used sturdy containers to hold hardy lunches, consisting of foods such as hard-boiled eggs, vegetables, meat, coffee, and pie. David Shayt, curator of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, states that "Some of our earliest examples, from the 19th century, were woven baskets with handles. A meal would be wrapped in a handkerchief. Depending on your station, a fancy wooden box would be used by the wealthy." Tinplate boxes and recycled biscuit tins commonly were used in the early 1800s, and fitted metal pails and boxes began to appear around the 1850s. Patents started to appear for lunchbox inventions in the 1860s.

Vacuum bottles, which enabled hot or cold beverages to remain at optimal temperature until lunchtime, became a common component of the lunch box. In 1920, The American Thermos Bottle Co. produced "the first metal lunch box for kids" to aid selling their vacuum bottles.

Decorated
The first lunch box decorated with a famous licensed character was introduced in 1935. Produced by Geuder, Paeschke & Frey, it featured Mickey Mouse, and was a four-color lithographed oval tin, with a pull-out tray inside. It had no vacuum bottle, but did have a handle.

In 1950, Aladdin Industries created the first children's lunch box based on a television show, Hopalong Cassidy. The Hopalong Cassidy lunch kit, or "Hoppy", quickly became Aladdin's cash cow. Debuting in time for back-to-school 1950, it would go on to sell 600,000 units in its first year alone, each at US$2.39. In 1953, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were featured on models introduced by American Thermos.

Over 450 decorated models quickly followed, and more than 120 million metal lunch boxes were sold between 1950 and 1970, often accompanied by a Thermos, initially made of metal and glass, and later plastic.

Lunch boxes have been manufactured using various materials. Typically, children's school lunch boxes are made of plastic or vinyl, while adult workers' lunch boxes are commonly made of metal, such as tin or aluminium, due to the greater need for durability. The aluminium variant was invented in 1954 by Leo May, a miner in Sudbury, Ontario, after he accidentally crushed his tin lunch box.

Manufacturers grew to include ADCO Liberty, Kruger Manufacturing Company, Landers, Frary and Clark (Universal), Okay Industries, and a number of other producers through the 1980s.

The first use of plastics was the lunch box handle, but later spread to the entire box, with the first molded plastic boxes produced during the 1960s. Vinyl lunch boxes debuted in 1959.

During the 1960s, the lunch box had few changes. The vacuum bottle included in them, however, steadily evolved during the course of the decade and into the 1970s. What was originally a steel vacuum bottle with glass liner, cork or rubber stopper, and bakelite cup became an all-plastic bottle, with insulated foam rather than vacuum. Aladdin produced glass liners into the 1970s, but they were soon replaced with plastic.

School safety
Beginning in Florida during the 1970s, with the lobbying of parents who claimed the metal boxes were being used as weapons in fights, many schools in the United States banned metal lunch boxes. One of the last metal lunchboxes to be widely produced was one with a design promoting Rambo: First Blood Part II.

Health issues
Health concerns came to light in August 2002, when the Center for Environmental Health discovered that many popular vinyl lunch boxes contained dangerously high levels of lead. Many, though not all, were pulled from the shelves.

In 2001, most major manufacturers began testing their lunch boxes for lead levels, remedied the issue, and labeled their boxes as lead free.

Today
Today, lunch boxes are generally made of plastic, with foam insulation, and an aluminium/vinyl interior. As a result, they are usually much better at retaining their temperature but are less rigid/protective. However, metal lunch boxes are still produced, just not as popular as they were in the 1960 through 1980's.

Collecting
Some lunch boxes, including those from the 1950s and 1960s, sometimes sell into the thousands of dollars. In 1999, a "1954 Superman lunch box, made by Adco Liberty" was "gaveled down for $11,500" ("the highest auction price ever paid for a lunch box").

Political symbolism
In the United States, the lunch box or lunch pail has been used as a symbol of the working class. The phrase "lunch pail Democrat" is used to classify populist politicians who attempt to gain the votes of the working class. The New York Times printed in 2008 that Joe Biden is a lunch-bucket Democrat. While his father had been wealthy early in life, by the time Biden was born, the family was broke.

Outside the United States

Japan has a tradition of bento, individual portable meals, that dates back several centuries and influenced other countries in South East Asia. Bento generally consists of rice and a number of other food items, transported within a lunchbox that has compartments to keep each item separate.

In Mumbai, India, there are extensive lunchbox delivery services, continuing a business model that originated in 1890, where delivery staff called dabawallas pick up metal tiffin carrier lunchboxes containing freshly cooked food, usually from the recipient's home, deliver them to people at their place of work and return empty lunchboxes.

In Korea, the similar concept is known as dosirak.

In some South American countries, a lunch box is called "lonchera", especially among school children, in assimilation of the English word "lunch".

title: Lunchbox


text:
Réal Caouette

David Réal Caouette (September 26, 1917 – December 16, 1976) was a Canadian politician from Quebec. He was a member of Parliament (MP) and leader of the Social Credit Party of Canada and founder of the Ralliement des créditistes. Outside politics he worked as a car dealer.

His son, Gilles Caouette, was also a Social Credit MP and was briefly acting leader of the party.

Early political career
Caouette was born in Amos, in the Abitibi region of Quebec, the son of Marie (Cloutier) and Samuel Caouette. Caouette was converted to the social credit philosophy in 1939. He was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada in a 1946 by-election in Pontiac for the Union des electeurs, a pro-Social Credit group in Quebec. He sat as a Social Credit MP once elected. In the 1949 election, his home was drawn into the newly created Villeneuve, and he was defeated as a Union des électeurs candidate.

Out of Parliament
He ran again in the 1953, 1957 and 1958 elections, but was unsuccessful each time. He also ran provincially, for the Quebec Liberal Party, in the 1956 provincial election but was defeated. In 1958, he broke with Union des électeurs founders Louis Even and Gilberte Côté-Mercier, and joined Social Credit forming Ralliement des créditistes as the national party's Quebec wing of which he became the uncontested leader.

Leadership defeat
In 1961, he ran for leadership of the Social Credit Party, but lost to Robert N. Thompson, a Social Credit MP from Alberta. The totals were never released.

Caouette later claimed that on paper, he would have had enough support to win if not for Alberta Premier Ernest Manning intervening in favour of Thompson. According to Caouette, Manning told the Quebec delegates to vote for Thompson because Western Socreds would never accept a Francophone Catholic as party leader.

Breakthrough
In the 1962 election, Social Credit won 26 seats in Québec, led by Caouette, who returned as the member for Villeneuve. He held this seat until 1966, when he transferred to the newly created Témiscamingue, a riding he would hold for the rest of his life. The party won only four seats in the rest of Canada. Under the circumstances, Thompson was all but forced to name Caouette as the party's deputy leader. Holding the balance of power in the House of Commons of Canada, Social Credit helped bring down the Progressive Conservative minority government of John Diefenbaker. However, in the 1963 election, Social Credit was reduced to 24 seats nationwide, all but four of which were in Quebec.

Caouette fought for bilingualism in the House of Commons, winning a symbolic victory when he got the Parliament's restaurant to produce bilingual menus. In this, he anticipated the official bilingualism policy that would later be put into effect by Pierre Trudeau.

The Socred MPs from Québec considered Caouette as their true leader. Over time, Caouette came to believe that since the party was most successful in Québec, he should be the leader of the party instead of Thompson. As well, Caouette and his followers remained true believers in the social credit monetary theories of C.H. Douglas while Thompson and the party's two most powerful branches—in Alberta and British Columbia—had largely abandoned the theory. Thompson refused to step aside, prompting Caouette and virtually all of the Socred MPs from Quebec to split from the party in 1963 and establish the Ralliement des créditistes as a separate political party.

In the 1965 election, Caouette's Ralliement won nine seats, while Social Credit led by Thompson won five seats. In the 1968 election, Caouette's party won 14 seats while Social Credit won none.

The two parties were reunited under Caouette's leadership for the 1972 election. The reunited Socreds won 15 seats in that election, all in Québec. It would never elect another MP from English Canada, though it continued to nominate candidates outside of Québec.

Later political career
In the 1974 federal election, the Social Credit Party machine in Québec was wracked by internal divisions. Caouette was suffering from a snowmobiling accident, and therefore the powerful voice that had carried Social Credit in prior elections was silenced. When he was able to speak, Caouette focussed his attacks on the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democratic Party, instead of the Liberal Party, which was Social Credit's main competitor in Québec. Two weeks before the election was called, Caouette had informed the parliamentary caucus that he would resign as leader in the fall. Despite the party infighting, they managed 11 seats. Though this was one seat short of official status, the Speaker of the House of Commons agreed to recognize them as a party.

The decline of the party accelerated after Caouette resigned from the party leadership in 1976. Caouette had announced in 1975 that he would step down from the leadership within a year. He was hospitalized after a stroke on September 16, and died three months later.

After his death in 1976, Social Credit went into decline both in Québec and at the federal level. The party fell to only six seats under Fabien Roy in the 1979 election. It was shut out of Parliament altogether in 1980, never to return. The party eventually folded in 1993.

Political views
Caouette mixed Social Credit's traditional social conservatism with ardent Québec nationalism. A populist leader and charismatic speaker, Caouette appealed to those who felt left out and pushed aside by financial institutions, traditional politicians, and what they perceived as elitist intellectuals.

Throughout the course of his career, Caouette was known for making controversial and intemperate statements. Shortly after World War II, Caouette claimed that his economic theories were the same as those of Benito Mussolini's government in Italy, and said that Mussolini and Adolf Hitler were his political heroes. During the October Crisis of 1970, he also claimed that leaders of the marxist Front de libération du Québec, which precipitated the October Crisis, should be shot by a firing squad. While such statements may have resonated with Créditiste supporters, they impaired the party's popularity with the mainstream electorate.

 * "The disdain for outsiders always seemed to fit conveniently with the theory of conspiracy of the old parties. The Jews were another and equally convenient part of the Creditiste demonology and there was a continuing strain of anti-Semitism. After the 1962 triumph, Caouette revealed that his political heroes were Hitler and Mussolini. As late as a few years ago, his bookshelves contained The Protocols of the Elders of Zion ... If non-Creditistes were horrified, the loyalists did not seem to care."—John Gray

Election results

 * Candidat des électeurs
 * Réal Caouette
 * align=right|8,129

 * Candidat des électeurs
 * Réal Caouette
 * align=right|8,276

Archives
There is a Réal Caouette fonds at Library and Archives Canada. Archival reference number is R7439.

title: Réal Caouette


text:
The Family Jams

The Family Jams is an album featuring members of the Manson Family recorded in 1970, with all songs written by Charles Manson, and first released in 1997. Manson himself does not perform on the album; most of the male vocals are sung by Steve "Clem" Grogan. Other members appearing on the album are Sandra Good, Catherine "Gypsy" Share, Catherine "Cappy" Gillies, Nancy "Brenda" Pitman, and Ruth Ann "Ouisch" Moorehouse.

The album was released in 1997 by both Transparency Records and Aoroa Records simultaneously. The first disc contains a remaster of the limited-release white vinyl record The Manson Family Sings the Songs of Charles Manson. The second disc contains previously unreleased material and alternate takes.

Production
The Manson Family gathered together in late 1969, including Bruce Davis (then wanted by the FBI), in the Spahn Ranch saloon, to record music for Robert Hendrickson's Manson film. This was the beginning of the Family Jams, though the earliest tapes remained buried in a vault. Audio was recorded as the murder trial was ongoing, with the song "Get on Home" containing the eerie line referring to the killers carving crosses into their foreheads: "When you see the children with x's on their head, if you dare to look at them, soon you will be dead."

Track listing
All songs written by Charles Manson.

Disc one

 * 1) "Ra-Hide Away!"
 * 2) "Love's Death"
 * 3) "Die to Be One"
 * 4) "No Wrong-Come Along"
 * 5) "Get on Home"
 * 6) "Is There No One in Your World But You?"
 * 7) "First They Made Me Sleep in the Closet/I'm Scratchin' Peace Symbols on Your Tombstone"
 * 8) "Give Your Love (To Be Free)"
 * 9) "I'll Never Say Never to Always"
 * 10) "Look at Your Love"
 * 11) "If I Had a Million Dollars"
 * 12) "Goin' to the Church House"

Disc two

 * 1) "A Gamblin' Man Come From Natchez"
 * 2) "Ra-Hide Away"
 * 3) "Die to Be One"
 * 4) "The Fires Are Burning"
 * 5) "Give Your Love (To Be Free)"
 * 6) "The Young Will Overcome"
 * 7) "Going to the Church House"
 * 8) "Love's Death"
 * 9) "I'll Never Say Never to Always"
 * 10) "Die to Be One"
 * 11) "Look at Your Love"
 * 12) "I Can't Remember When"
 * 13) "Going to the Church House"
 * 14) "I Can't Remember When (Alternate)"
 * 15) "Give Your Love to Be Free"
 * 16) "London Bridge Is Falling Down"

Influence
The British Doom Metal band Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats recorded a version of "Get on Home" to use as a b-side for the single release "Mind Crawler" from their 2013 album Mind Control.

title: The Family Jams


text:
Tenantry Column

The Tenantry Column is a monument to the south of Alnwick town centre, in Northumberland, England. It was erected in 1816 by the tenants of Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland in thanks for his reduction of their rents during the post-Napoleonic depression. It is a Doric column standing 83 ft tall and surmounted by a lion en passant, the symbol of the Percy family. Four more lions stand on a platform at the base of the column. A muster roll of the Percy Tenantry Volunteers was sealed into the foundation. The structure was granted protection as a listed building in 1952 and since 1977 has been listed in the highest category, grade I.

Description
The Doric column is 83 ft tall and topped by the Percy Lion, symbol of the historic Percy family. The lion sits on top of a drum decorated with foliage and surmounted with an iron balcony. The lion's tail, unusually, is horizontal and is said to point towards Scotland but the reason why is not known. The lion, depicted en passant, points south.

The base of the column is surrounded by a circular granite platform of 90 ft circumference, accessible by stairs. The platform is surrounded by four more lions, on black marble plinths, which look upon Alnwick. A panel on the west side of the base of the column is engraved "To Hugh, Duke of Northumberland K.G This column is Erected, Dedicated and Inscribed By a Grateful and United Tenantry Anno Domini MDCCCXVI". Panels on two other sides are marked with the Percy family motto "Esperance en dieu" (French: Hope is in God). The fourth side contains the entrance to the column's internal stair case. The platform was originally surrounded by railings, but these have been lost.

Buried in a cavity in the foundations is the regimental roll of the late Percy Tenantry Volunteers, written on vellum and sealed in a glass tube. In 1887 Alnwick's railway station was built near to the column. It is one of the first sights to greet visitors to Alnwick, arriving from the south.

History
Designed by the Newcastle architect David Stephenson, the column was erected by the tenants of the second Duke of Northumberland in 1816 in thanks for a reduction in rents. The foundation stone for the column was laid on 1 July 1816, an event witnessed by a large audience. The ceremony was led by a band and flag bearers and attended by Stephenson (bearing a ceremonial silver trowel), the principal tenants and two clergymen. The 21 oldest of Percy's tenants ceremoniously used the trowel to lay the stone. The foundation stone was afterwards blessed and ceremonially doused with corn, wine and oil. The column was not completed until after the Duke's 10 July 1817 death and was instead presented to his son Hugh Percy, 3rd Duke of Northumberland. The stone for the column came from a nearby estate on Percy family land.

The Duke had doubled or tripled rents during the agricultural boom that accompanied the Napoleonic Wars but, in an unusual show of 19th-century aristocratic generosity, had agreed to reduce them during the post-Napoleonic depression. The reduction applied is said to have been 25%. Percy was one of the richest men in England at this time. A local legend, proved to be false, is that upon seeing that his tenants had money to pay for the structure the Duke raised his rents once more. The Percy Tenantry Volunteers was a 1,500-strong unit of the British Volunteer Corps that the Duke had raised, at his own expense, during the war to defend the north-east from a potential French invasion.

The column is also known as "The Farmer's Folly". It was granted protection as a listed building by Historic England on 20 February 1952: the listing was upgraded to the highest category, grade I, on 25 August 1977.

title: Tenantry Column