On Intelligent Design—a Sermon



Rabbi Jonathan Miller

Temple Emanu-El

Birmingham, Alabama

August 26, 2005/22 Av, 5765



In Georgia, a sticker in the high school textbook warns biology students as follows:



“This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.” We have similar stickers on our textbooks in Alabama.

Earlier this month, our President, George W. Bush, has opined about biology instruction, "I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

In Seattle, a conservative think tank, the Discovery Institute, works diligently to promote the idea that there are other explanations to the existence of life than Darwin’s theory of evolution. There are other explanations to explain the vast diversity of life, the fossil record, and the natural selection of species. They are summed up today in the concept of Intelligent Design. Just what is Intelligent Design? Who is pushing this forward and why? Why are evolution and the process of natural selection so threatening to some proponents of faith? And what are we, as Jews, to do about this swirling controversy?

In the 1830’s, Charles Darwin, a noted biologist, traveled the Pacific observing plants, animals and fossil records. He was most impacted by his experience on the Galapagos Islands, a group of Islands. There he noted that the diverse flora and animal life was remarkably different from the life found in the South American mainland, hundreds of miles away. He especially noticed a species of ordinary birds called finches, and that they had developed different shaped beaks. He theorized that the finches evolved from a single species of finch birds, and the beak development and differentiation was determined by whether they were high flying birds, ground dwelling birds, birds living in the trees or birds living in cacti, and whether they would nourish themselves by eating seeds or insects. Their environment determined the shape of their beaks.

From his observations, he put forward the theory of natural selection, that over the course of millions of years, species evolve in ways that help them best adapt to their environment. Those species that are more suitable to their environment live to reproduce and readapt to environmental changes. And those species that do not adapt die off and disappear altogether. In his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, Darwin theorized that evolution is the cause of the diversity of life; that evolutionary change was gradual taking place over vast amounts of time; that life evolved by the process called natural selection; and that the diversity of life today is due to a process called specialization.

This theory threw the religious world into an uproar. Just as Copernicus, Giordano Bruno and Galileo’s observations of the solar system (that the earth revolved around the sun) challenged the religious order, Darwin’s theory of the origin of species challenged the common religious belief that God had created the bio diversity of our planet all at once during the six days of creation. But Copernicus’ theories were never published in his lifetime. Bruno was burned at the stake by the Inquisition for heresy, and Galileo was forced by the Church under threat of death to recant his theories. But there was no such religious authority in 19th century England able to quash Darwin and his theories. Now, science and religion were pitted against each other as adversaries. Even today, advocates of evolution and Darwin’s theories are thought to be impious and irreligious, compared to those who cling to the sacred notion that God created all life as now appears on our planet, in accordance with the Biblical accounts.

In the world of science, a theory is not just some idea or some opinion. Scientists observe the world as it is and test their observations. Scientific theory has to conform to observation, measurement and analysis. Scientific theories have to be able to be replicated in other times and other places. And scientific theories are subject to peer review—the review of other scientists. Darwin’s theory of the origin of species has, for so many reasons, proven itself again and again. It conforms to the fossil record, to our observed biosphere, and it has yet to be wholly disproved by generations of scientists.

So why is there a warning in our high school biology textbooks? Why has our President come forward to push examining other theories? Just what is going on here?

There has been a long opposition by some Protestant Christian groups in America to the teaching of evolution in our public schools. In 1925, a high school teacher, John Scopes, was convicted of violating Tennessee law by teaching evolution instead of the story of Divine Creation as the source of life on earth. The famous Clarence Darrow, who was pitted against Williams Jennings Bryan in this case, defended him. From this, and other cases, the courts determined that the teaching of Creationism was particular to a unique religious tradition, American Fundamentalist Protestantism, and creationism was loudly discredited. The teaching of religious doctrine was removed from our public schools.



Recently, the advocates of creationism have invented a new term, Intelligent Design. The idea behind Intelligent Design is that life, as we know it is far too diverse to have not been somehow created by design. At some point, an intelligent designer (read God) created life as it is, every bug, every mammal, every fish, every plant, and put these created objects on the planet where they belong. And after all, don’t all of us religious folks believe in a God that is both intelligent and the source of creation? What could be wrong with Intelligent Design?



That is easy. It is not science. For something to be scientific, it has to be observable, measurable, and able to be duplicated. What do we do with the dinosaurs? What do we do with the fossils of extinct animals? It is estimated that of 95% of all living organisms ever to grace the face of the earth are now extinct. “Never mind,” say the Intelligent Design folks. “The Intelligent Designer put these fossils and bones here too.” How do we account for the fact that New Zealand has no snakes, that we humans have been blessed with an appendix that serves no purpose but to make us sick, or that some species exist only in certain parts of the world and not in others? The advocates of Intelligent Design cannot answer these questions. Intelligent Design is simply a mask for the discredited creationists, and a subterfuge to bring religion back to the classroom disguised as an alternative to accepted scientific theory.



But you may ask, “Rabbi, don’t you believe in creation? Don’t you believe that God created the universe?” To which I respond with a pious and a serious, “Of course I do!” I cannot believe for a moment that God is not the source of life, the source of morals, the source of holiness, the source of comfort and caring, and the source of hope. God is the source of all these things, yet I do not feel that I have to champion Intelligent Design or creationism in the name of my faith. The essayist Leon Wieseltier quipped, “Sanctity is not an excuse for stupidity.”



Science and religion occupy two different spheres of knowledge. If they are forced to mirror each other, they make each other look foolish and stupid. Science seeks to understand the world as it is. Science seeks to describe existence as it can be measured and quantified. That the lion eats the lamb is not a reflection of feline aggression or moral insufficiency. Lambs are eaten and lions chow them down. When the earth convulses and quakes, it is a reflection of tectonic plates deep underneath the earth’s surface. When storms rumble in raining death and destruction, it is because of the rotating earth and the pressure in the atmosphere and the temperature of the ocean. These have nothing to do with a wrathful God. Religion asks different questions: Why are we here? What is the correct way for me to act? Can I forgive? Can I be forgiven? Can I be comforted?” This is religion’s purpose and this too is critical for us as people.



So what should we do with creation? I have no problem reconciling science and religion. I believe that God created the universe as an act of will, with intelligence. And I also believe that God’s intent was to enable species to evolve over the passage of billions of years. Of course life comes from God, but our earth and all of the life forms have evolved from this moment of creation.



“But rabbi,” you may ask, “What do we do about the words of the Torah? Are they not true?” This is an especially easy question to answer. Of course they are true, but they are not facts. The Torah speaks in metaphor. Some try to reconcile Torah and science bby redefining the language. For instance; a day of creation is in actuality a hundred million years in God’s sight. But these people are also speaking in metaphoric riddles. In the language I use, a day means a day, and a hundred million years means a hundred million years. Modern Jews have always seen the Torah as a reflection of God’s reality, and not a history book or a science textbook. The rabbis embrace the multitude of meanings in their tradition of Midrash. There is a greater meaning, a meaning behind the meaning, and even greater layers of meaning to those who can imagine and interpret Torah. This is our strength and the source of our faith. It is not the words of Torah, but the imagination of our people in relationship to God and Torah that enables us to live in the world of religion and science, at the same time, and not be afraid. We can use the Torah as metaphor, and not as science, and it can be true for us.



The greatest scholar of Torah and Talmud was the Rambam, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, known in the west as Maimonides who lived in the twelfth century—in Spain, in Morroco and in Egypt. Rambam was also a philosopher, a scientist and a physician, and he was the physician to the Caliph of Egypt. Maimonides was true to Torah and true to science. In his epic work, Moreh N’vuchim, the Guide for the Perplexed, Rambam talks about God as the sekhel hapoel, the Active Intellect. God is the intellect which activates all reality, from whom substance and idea and morality and ethics flow. God’s intellect creates the reality in which we live. Within the Active Intellect of God, we have the truths of science to compliment faith, and faith to compliment science. Our being faithful does not negate our wisdom, but rather it should enhance it. We reject the concept of simple faith because it is, well, how should I best say it?—simple. Faith is complicated and reason is complicated and they are two sides of the same reality. So I reject Intelligent Design on two grounds, because it is bad science and it is bad religion.



After all, “Sanctity is not an excuse for stupidity.”



Shabbat Shalom