It is one thing for people who are desperate to adhere to their atheist worldview to erroneously claim that appealing to God within a scientific context is unscientific. It is quite another when a theist agrees.
Ultimately, this deals with the explanation fallacy which erroneously supposes that there is one single explanation. Actually, there are various explanations (plural) for any given consideration. There are levels of explanations, there are contexts of explanations, there are immediate and wider scope of explanations, etc.
For example, to the question, “How did life come into being?” Someone may respond, “God created life.” An erroneous reply to this would be, “That’s just a God’did’it of the gaps, it is a science stopper!” Rather, on a philosophical level, God’did’it is, indeed, an, a sort, a form, one, explanation. However, if the question is posed within a scientific, a how context, then the question is not who or what did’it but how was it done. This is asking for a step by step explanation and so the answer has to be of another sort (note that not one has a step by step account, see here for various failed examples John Horgan, “In the Beginning…” – Scientific American).
A pervious series posed a question for atheists “Is God did it a science stopper?” Claiming that it is just that has become an ubiquitously promulgated well within the box atheist group-think talking-point de jour. But now we have such a claim being made by a theist (of whatever sort) who adheres to Darwinian orthodoxy and opposes Intelligent Desing.
Professor of biology Mark McPeek (Dartmouth College) wrote a statement on Intelligent Design in which he noted:
What makes something science is not merely having hypotheses. Science is having hypotheses and then testing them. The Intelligent Design hypothesis is untestable by science, exactly because we can never empirically know or understand the actions of God or any other Intelligent Designer.
This in no way negates the validity of the hypothesis. It simply means that this hypothesis is outside the purview of science, because science can only support or refute hypotheses that are empirically testable, and this is not one of them.
Let us firstly consider the fact that the premise upon which Intelligent Design theory is based is that the universe runs on information and the only known source of information is mind. This is something which no one has refuted.
Talk about science stoppers! It is a science stopper to claim that we can never empirically know or understand the actions of God or any other Intelligent Designer. This seems more like a hope or a regurgitation of a neo-atheistic-Darwinian dogma.
Mark McPeek further notes:
…if God’s hand were accepted as the scientific explanation for some complexity of nature, scientific inquiry into that complexity — by definition — stops…science can only be mute on these issues, since we cannot empirically test the existence, actions or methods of God.
The very premise upon which science itself is based is that the universe was created by a rational God whose creation could be explored and discerned rationally.
The premise upon which science is based is that we can, indeed, empirically know and understand the actions of God or any other Intelligent Designer. This is because we learn of the actions of God or any other Intelligent Designer via exploring creation.
Why is it that if God’s hand were accepted as the scientific explanation for some complexity of nature, scientific inquiry into that complexity — by definition — stops may we likewise claim that but if chance, matter, time (the it just happened of the gaps) were accepted as the scientific explanation for some complexity of nature, scientific inquiry into that complexity — by definition — stops?
After all, science can only be mute on these issues, since we cannot empirically test the existence, actions or methods of change, matter and time. Rather, just as we can learn about change, matter and time we can learn about God in the same way: by exploring creation.
Casey Luskin noted (A Positive, Testable Case for Intelligent Design):
…if we can empirically know and understand the actions of intelligent agents, then we can make testable predictions about what we should find if intelligent causation was at work.
Casey Luskin specifically wrote this in response to Mark McPeek and he provided evidence of Intelligent Design providing frameworks for scientific inquiry and scientific predictions.