The proposed monotheistic track-record is constructed from a false example (or examples).1 The primary example of a failed theistic-explanation is design being replaced by Darwinian evolution. However...
This is relevant because a track-record whose members don't actually belong is not a veridical track-record and affords a correspondingly deficient amount of inductive evidence for future predictions of theistic failure.
• Sean Carroll: “Over the past five hundred years, the progress of science has worked to strip away God’s roles in the world. He isn’t needed to keep things moving [thanks to Laplace], or to develop the complexity of living creatures [thanks to Darwin], or to account for the existence of the universe.” [“Does the Universe Need God?” in The Blackwell Companion to Science and Christianity, eds. Stump & Padgett (Blackwell, 2012), .] So in response, See: Beginningless-universe models are false In particular, Sean Carroll's model is false, and his quantum eternity theorem is also probably false.
The proposed track-record has a near-zero sample size.1 (After all, usually only the same two examples are cited: Darwin’s answer for biological designs, and Laplace’s answer for planetary motion.)2 This is relevant because a track-record with a near-zero sample size is not a veridical track-record and affords a correspondingly deficient amount of inductive evidence for future predictions of theistic failure.
The proposed track-record is too broad—formed by a sampling that is non-representative. (What do we mean by non-representative? See footnote #2?). After all, a trained academic is far more likely to present a responsible explanation-type than the untrained laity, so sampling from among the untrained laity to obtain a track record from which to judge proposals from trained academics is misguided.2
• Robin Collins: “many theists would claim that Newton’s famous invocation of God to keep the planetary orbits stable implies a less than satisfactory picture of a constantly intervening God.” [“The Fine-tuning of Physics” in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (Blackwell, 2009), 225.] It may also be worth noting that if the track record is specifically incorporating cases were apologists invoked God as the best explanation for some mystery in nature, that Newton's case doesn't even belong.
• Alvin Plantinga: “Newton seems ... to have suffered a bum rap. He suggested that God made periodic adjustments in the orbits of the planets; true enough. But he didn't propose this as a reason for believing in God; it is rather that (of course) he already believed in God, and couldn't think of any other explanation for the movements of the planets. He turned out to be wrong; he could have been right, however, and in any event he wasn't endorsing any of the characteristic ideas of God-of-the-gaps thought [“Methodological Naturalism” Pt. II, Origins and Design, Vol. 18, No. 2, Footnote 52]
• David Snoke: “Did anyone ever argue for the existence of God because we didn’t understand… the orbits of the planets? Perhaps some pagan shaman somewhere has argued that way, but I see no evidence for any serious Christian argument along those lines. We must distinguish between bad explanations for certain things within the theistic world view, and arguments for the theistic world view itself. People arguing that comets were signs from God or that demons caused all sickness did not argue that God existed because comets and demons existed; rather, starting from belief in God, they posited a reasonable, though ultimately falsified, theory about comets and demons. In the same way, people working within an atheistic world view have proposed bad explanations for things, such as the theory of spontaneous generation or the Lamarkian theory of evolution. The falsification of a subtheory within a larger world view does not falsify the whole world view. If it did, every falsified scientific theory would cause everyone to reject all of Western science.” [“In Favor of God-of-the-Gaps Reasoning,” Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith, vol. 53 (2001): 158.]
The proposed track-record transforms in the face of paradigm shifts. This is relevant because such paradigm shifts are on the horizon.
The proposed track record discards would-be theistic successes by methodological fiat. (Consider various origins examples below where theism ostensibly succeeds. Most atheistic advocates of the so-called failing theistic track-record thesis methodologically disallow such theistic explanations from being deemed successes.) This is relevant because if the track record only allows non-theistic explanations, then the fact that the track-record consists of only non-theistic explanations is irrelevant. Such a track-record is useless as inductive evidence that a given phenomenon will have a non-theistic explanation.1
Scientific advances have a greater trend of bolstering the appeal of theistic explanation. Theism offers the best explanation…
• …for the origin of the Universe
• …for the origin of the fine-tuning of physics
• …for the origin of life
• …for the origin of speciated designs in life, e.g.…
• …the origin of protein folds
• …the origin of sexual reproduction
• …the origin of body plans
• …the origin of consciousness
• …the origin of moral awareness
• …the origin of human exceptionalism (e.g. the origin of language)