You’ve heard it before. From Creationists. From career contrarians. From unapologetic apologeticists. And from well-meaning religious folks lookin’ to justify and trustify. It goes like this: Any gaps in our scientific knowledge are instantaneously filled with the actions of your favorite deity. Is there evidence for their claim? Nope - that’s why it is considered a logical fallacy known as an argument from ignorance, aka argumentum ad ignorantiam. Positive evidence lacking, a mere hypothesis is often elevated above plausible theories that have at least some evidence. The persistence of these gaps, and thus the promotion of the explanations given for them depends on us remaining ignorant of what happened in those gaps. As science expands its scope and sensitivity, these gaps shrink, and what once was used as justification for one’s personal beliefs, vanishes like a quantum fluctuation of a vacuum.

We find these gaps everywhere. From the details of the origin of life, to the origin of specific genes and biochemical pathways. From the formation of our solar system, to the details about our Universe’s beginning. There are gaps almost everywhere, such as the gaps in the Mindcast.

Yes, some of you have probably noticed the incongruency: I’m up to 78 episodes, yet, there are only 61 different episodes showing in iTunes. What happened on those 17 shows? What about the further 20 episodes recorded on the radio before I started podcasting?

Clearly, there are gaps in our knowledge that need to be filled! I would love to edit and listen to all of these myself, and upload them one by one, but at an hour and a half each, your looking at some serious time spent working on these, and I have a lot on my plate. If it took 2.5 hours to completely listen to each one, edit it, and upload it, that would be almost 100 hours of time for all 37 episodes. Not to mention the time it takes to research, write, and record the chemical commercial segments…

But I also don’t want to deprive you of some of the news, discussion, and interviews that I have recorded. There’s a lot of good stuff in them, so it’s time to fill those gaps.

These are the episodes that are missing:

5,6,7,8

18

48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59

and -1 to -20. (Yes, my pre-podcast episodes will be in negative numbers)

So without any further ado I’m announcing the God of the Gaps Mindcast Challenge!

(You too can be a God of the Gaps!)

  1. When I find the time, and especially when I’m unable to record a new episode, I will quickly edit and upload one of them and tag it with the God of the Gaps Challenge in its description. All I will do is make sure the music is mixed in right, and post the music source, composer, and the guest I had on the show that day, if applicable.
  2. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to listen to the show, and write a description of the episode, like I normally do for each one. It doesn’t have to be really detailed, but a good paragraph for each 1/2-hour segment, mentioning the content of the news, the topic of discussion, and the nature of the discussion with my guest is all that I need. Check a few previous episodes to see how I do it.
  3. Then, send me an email at science AT inoculatedmind DOT com with the completed summary, and your name.
  4. Your reward will be a $5 gift certificate for Amazon.com! Fill a gap in my knowledge, and I’ll fill a gap on your bookshelf. When you send me the email, tell me whether or not you would like to have your winnings accrue each time you send in a summary. Then let me know when you want to cash out and I’ll total it up and deliver it to your email inbox.
  5. The first complete summary that I get in my inbox wins the prize for that episode. I reserve the right to determine if the summary is suitable, but I don’t expect there to be any problems!
  6. Don’t worry about spelling everything exactly right, nor do you have to get every detail, think of it like a list of headlines to help people figure out whether or not they want to listen to the episode.
  7. Lastly, if there’s some big editing goof in the show, tell me where it is so I can fix it. I’ll throw in an extra buck for that.

That’s all there is to it. As soon as I get a winner, I’ll update the show post and the podcast feed info, and credit the listener who provided the description. One by one, the missing episodes will be filled, and gaps in all our knowledge will be eliminated. And gaps in your own knowledge can be filled by books from Amazon.com!

Take the God of the Gaps Mindcast Challenge. You too can be a God of the Gaps!

Let’s get this started…