Talk:God of the gaps

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

text: 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)
thread_title:  Argument from ignorance, personal incredulity, or failing Ockham's razor or? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Removed text 

message: 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)
thread_title:  More removed 

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

message: 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)
thread_title: More sources?

message: 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)
thread_title:  Lie to Children? 

message: 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)
replies: text: I agree.  The sentence seems meaningless.  User:Noisy | Talk 12:15, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Occam's Razor 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Theistic position

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  questions of science? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Near-Complete Obscuration 

message: 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)
thread_title: Other sense

message: 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)
thread_title: Criticism

message: 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)
thread_title:  Near-Complete Obscuration 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Lead Paragraph

message: 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)
replies: text: The exact reference to Bonhoeffer is in the "Bibliography": Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997 () "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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Synthesis 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title: Criticism section

message: === 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Drifting Again 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  How to Fix It 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Started 

message: :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)
thread_title:  Comment by Rlsheehan 

message: : 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.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Q. 2, Art. 3, 1270
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. 
Newton, Principia, General Scholium, 1687
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)
thread_title:  Response to Rlsheehan 

message: 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)
thread_title:  God Living in the Gaps 

message: 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)
thread_title:  More about the origin of the term 

message: 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)
thread_title: Jps's Complaints

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  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 IITalk to my owner:Online 18:02, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Date of Ascent of Man