The Creationists' Nightmare

[Angrboda]

The "I don't know, therefore God" stance isn't the best one to take.

Evolutionist: "I can't find the scientific proof yet, but until then I will believe there is some."

For every 'God of the Gaps' there is a 'Naturalism of the Gaps' to match. We haven't found 99.9% of the fossil record, but people still hold out for naturalistic solutions to life. They may not ever appear. Both sides have to assume a stance, and either one could easily accuse the other of lacking proof. Evolution is a history and response theory, meaning it moulds to the closest naturalistic solution, rather than being confirmed by fairly-drawn evidence. Every time a contradiction comes up, scientists alter the theory to include another yet-to-be-proven assertion.

I think you're miscasting the degree of certainty and the quality of evidence that science has on various propositions, likely due to a combination of ignorance and being fed misinformation, however in the main I would agree with your overall moral. I have a saying, that the truth doesn't issue promissory notes — until you deliver the goods in terms of experiments or evidence, all you can say is, "I don't know." Unfortunately, both within and without science, there is a mix of both scientific and skeptical mindsets, in which rational methods and philosophies contribute to reliable results, and what is termed "scientism" which is a quasi-religious attitude toward science in which rational belief is supplanted by less rational notions. In that realm one finds such hopeful wishing as "We don't have the answer yet, but we will, or we're more likely to." No. Until you actually have evidence implicating a specific answer, the probability of a specific answer is simply unknown. Unfortunately, many consider giving the answer "I don't know" to be a an indication of weakness or a concession, and adopt even less sensible attitudes. If you legitimately don't know, the scientific answer is just that, "We don't know."