I’m amazed at how shortsighted people are regarding the theory of Evolution. In this British survey, participants were asked if Evolution sufficiently explains the complexity of life. This is where 50% of the population waffles.
It is human nature to ascribe to magic, mysticism, and “higher powers” that which they fail to grasp.
5,000 years ago earthquakes were attributed to giant angry turtles. 2,000 years ago eclipses were signs of the end of the world, 1,000 years ago the movement of the heavens was a sign from God of Man’s primacy in the universe, 500 years ago people capable of clever tricks were burned at the stake.
Today we have the richter scale. We have annular solar eclipse parties and we spend billions on telescopes that show us how much of a universe there really is. We love magic shows.
Yet, in spite of all of this rational and scientific progress, we still fall back on the tired cliche of saying “oh, it must be God!” whenever we don’t fully understand how something is possible.
And that’s a tragedy. When you look at the mechanics of DNA transcription in a cell, it is truly amazing to witness. There’s a graphic demonstration of cell division online that leaves me speechless every time I see it. When I think of the infinite complexity of life, I bow before its greatness and appreciate how lucky I am to be part of it.
I don’t fully understand how it all works. But I don’t jump to the conclusion that it *must* be the work of God.
In this galaxy alone, there are some 100 billion stars. And in the visible universe, there are some 100 billion galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars of their own. And all of this universe has been in motion for 14 billion years. Even if you say that only one in a million stars has an Earth type planet orbiting it, and even if you say that one Earth in a million has life, and even if you say that one living Earth in a million has intelligent life, and that that only happens once every one million years, then … there would literally be 140,000,000 Earths just like us out there in the Universe.
But I don’t think that. I don’t think life is the result of random chance. What if life is a natural inevitability of the Universe, just like galaxies and black holes and solar systems? What if life happens because it’s a natural function of atoms and molecules coming together in a magnificent dance of form and ability?
Do we really need a god to be responsible for all of this? Is it really so unthinkable that in this infinitely expansive Universe that the amazing reality of life simply cannot happen on its own?
When we look out our window at a skyscraper or when we look at a pocket watch, we say to ourselves, “someone *made* that.” Someone, with intelligence and thought and purpose made that 80 story tower and that thing that goes tick-tock. They didn’t just spring into being.
But what about the stars? Who made those? They’re much more massive than an 80 story building and far more complicated than a pocket watch. Some would say God made those. But scientific examination shows a precise and predictable chain of events that causes a gas cloud to contract into a sphere which causes a core fusion reaction which causes a radiative effect which spurs millions of other actions, and so on until a star with planets and comets and kuiper belt objects are all dancing in a cosmic symphony of mathematical precision and beautiful personality.
Are you telling me that your God works off of a perfectly predictable and reproducible script of actions to make this wonderful Universe, including the planet we live on and the star we orbit?
People don’t do that. We don’t make buildings according to a set procedure. We innovate new types and shapes of buildings and pocket watches every day. We are crazy for new and unique things.
But the Universe has been churning out yellow dwarf stars according to a set of physics rules over and over again for 14 billion years. Planets are always round. Stars always run on fusion. Black holes always evaporate.
So given that the Universe builds and destroys in its own consistent fashion and is decidedly unlike how intelligent humans build and destroy, why would anyone ascribe intelligence to a system that behaves so … unintelligently?
You might finally argue, “well God put it all in motion. It’s His great machine.” Well that’s fine. But you still haven’t addressed the root issue: why are you attributing a God to this at all? If you don’t understand how all of this is possible, why not let that stand? Why not simply say, “this is currently a mystery,” and leave it there? Why must you jump to a divine conclusion?
Why are you not willing to wait for a scientific answer that properly explains the mysteries world? I can understand why you do it. The world can be a frightening place when you don’t have answers. Eclipses, earthquakes, sudden deaths; they’re enough to drive a person asking “why” to madness. It’s easier to say “this must be God” than “I don’t know.” It’s convenient. God has a plan. God is beyond reproach. Trust in God. It adds stability to your lives. But it has its limitations. Your explanation can’t tell you why God is blotting out the Sun or making the Earth shake, so you’re back to guessing.
That’s primarily why Scientists seek out answers. We know that when we have answers, the world is a less scary place. When Science demonstrates that an eclipse is nothing more than a visual effect caused by the alignment of heavenly bodies, you have nothing to fear. An eclipse goes from being a primitive social meltdown to an intellectual curiosity to be forgotten with the rest of your daily cares.
As the scientific method continues to explain the mechanics and origins of life, its nature will cease to be a mystery to us. The anxiety of not knowing what or why life is will be replaced with yet more calm and reticence so that we can continue pursuing our modest and fruitful lives free from the psychological reliance on a god to quell our paranoia and fear of the unknown.
Because it all will be known. It’s just a matter of time.

Can’t someone believe in God, even God as creator, and also believe in the theory of evolution?
In a word, yes. I do.
But, at least in mainstream Protestant Christian tradition (mine, more or less), there’s a lot that conflicts with a strictly scientific worldview. If you accept that the scientific method is an honest description of what humanity can know, you have to admit that it’s not possible to be sure God exists. For a lot of Christians (and other theists), this means that science must be bad. For a lot of scientists, this means that theism is worthless at best, and dangerous at worst.

rfjason: thank you for a wonderful post.

This is one of those situations where it can be truly said that “those who matter don’t care and those who care don’t matter.” The folks who deny evolution are simply outside the pale of rational discourse and must simply treated as such.

There is an old saying that goes–If you put one Jew in a room you have a discussion group. I had an uncle who was both both Orthodox and a scientist ( a high level civilian scientist for US Government). He might say that there are 2 flaws in any “black and white” position about Darwinian Evolution vs. Creationism. The first is a leaning toward human arrogance rather than humility. The second is speaking of the creator and the creation in strictly Anthropomorphic (Human) terms. Qualities that serves neither the scientist nor the pious man/woman. If we try to avoid both of these, both science and faith have a chance to grow and neither are diminished.

As rfjason earlier implies, to a large degree we humans need God. We may have created him in our own image of whom we want Him to be. We need a caring God. So whenever in the past we saw a terrifying sight of an eclipse or a defeaning thunder clap we needed assurance that there is a loving and caring creator of all who means no harm to us if we did the right things.
All those events made us humble to realize that we are ever so fragile and can be destroyed in a moments notice. We still remain the same fragile creatures. When hurricane Katrina visited us , the most technologically advanced nation in the world with all its science and technology, we were powerless to stop it. We still are afraid that a mutant strain of avian flu or a mighty comet might wipe us all out no matter what we do.
So we the fragile beings inhabiting this (ultimately a) cosmic speck of dust called earth, still desperately need a God in our own image who is loving and caring of us.
We despise our failings, we hate our fallibility. We succumb to our desires as against doing things for a greater good. We hope that there is a loving and caring God in our own image that will grant us safety and give us good things in return for us doing good.
So we hope and pray that God does exist to protect us all, when we do good and punish us for doing evil. Religion has to evolve – For we need God, yet we cannot be blind to advances made by members of our own species in understanding the nature around us. Ultimately Atheist too are human and they have fear too.

For me when I grasped and understood how evolution worked, I did become an atheist over time. Though it wasn’t directly evolution that did, it was my bekief in a religion that alrerady explained how a god created the earth and man.I believed Adam and Eve to be true and real as much as I believed in God himself. That belief in adam and eve was shattered upon my grasp of how Natural Selection worked and it’s truth of how life came to be. God over time followed, after all if Adam and Eve never existed then how do I know the rest of the story has any truth. For me this is how I became an Atheist. But if we teach young people about the fact of evolution early in childhood before they believe in adam and eve a story that may be shattered later on, I see no reason why people can’t believe in a God that can still exist even though we know understand how life arose without him. Religions will be modified or new religions will form to coexist with scientific discovery, a religion that embraces evolution will arise in my opinion. I’m an atheist, but I don’t believe atheism is a natural state form humans just a sort of limbo for those who have lost faith and yet to find anew belief they can believ in. Man needs religion and new ones will take the place of old ones that people have lost faith in.

The theory of evolution is, if you will pardon my choice of words, still evolving. When creationism can grow to explain newly discovered facts, then it would make some intellectual sense to me. But to me, the Genesis stories are wonderful metaphor, not statements of biology and geology.

A Theory is a scientific model that is supported by empirical data. DNA, genetic transference models, bones of our primitive ancestors as linked through simple biology, not to mention the recorded histories of civilizations that predate the foundation of the faith that sparked the whole ‘debate’ to begin with.
If evolution were only a Hypothesis, then the creationists might have a more valid argument. It seems that most of them erroneously use the word “theory”, when the word “hypothesis” more accurately describes their belief. This proves that this argument is one based on emotional belief in a Creation myth… which are found in faiths the world over.
Besides, Humans are animals…we belong to the kingdom Animalia. So, the issue of whether or not we evolved from animals is moot…we are animals. Until we stop sharing genetic coding and DNA with every species on the planet, you can’t disprove that simple fact. No theory about it.
On a purely personal note, I do not feel that the belief in a Divine creation story needs to contradict evolution, and vice versa. The two can go hand-in-hand. The only issue arises when people try to force a literal understanding of their religions creation myths onto the public.
For the record, I’m all for teaching about Creationism in schools… In elective comparative religion classes, like what I had in my High School. Heck, there are already several textbooks on the topic. (This is the one I used: http://prenhall.com/hopfe/) But again, the groups who are pushing for Creationism in schools are not interested in World Religions – they are only interested in pushing their personal faith into the public school room, and they see this argument as the key.

“Can’t someone believe in God, even God as creator, and also believe in the theory of evolution?”
I see no irreconcilable difference between being a faithful Roman Catholic and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology. That evolution is ongoing is indisputable. The Scriptures say that God created, they do not provide a mechanism. Evolution does. With humans, the body clearly has arisen through evolution, yet God creates each soul.
Many of my peers scoff at the notion of a God who has always existed. These same peers accept absolutely The First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It only changes form.
Again, energy cannot be created. This is incontrovertible scientific law. So, there is little difference between the religious person, and the atheistic/agnostic scientist. Both believe in the eternal preexistence of something. At least the religious person believes in the preexistence of a dynamic source of first principles. How all of this has come about is on my short list of questions for when I meet God.

I am proud to be part of the Clergy Letter project about evolution and the Evolution Project. I firmly believe that failing to take evolution seriously (as compared to “believing” in it) is a significant lapse of faith in God and the result of prefering to wallow in ignorance. Revelation is one path for knowledge, but it is neither predicatable nor verifiable by definition. Discovery is verifiable and predicatable, but it is not specific to one person in a particular time as is revelation. They both contribute to wisdom as well as knowledge. Chosing one and ignoring the other leads to lopsided choices and circuitous thinking. As the angels said to the Shepherds, “Fear Not!” and as God said, “Behold, I make all things new!” God’s self is revealed in the infinite beauty and dversity and changeability of life. What is flawed is not God but our feeble understanding limited by our sense that we are the be-all and end-all of creation. Foolish humans!

The only reason I have trouble believing in evolution is that so many people around us seem not to have evolved.

Why couldn’t God have used the process of Evolution to further individual species and winnow out others?
I have no problem with ‘creationism’ taught in schools as long as :
1. Is is not taught as Science.
2. All “creationism” is explored, not just Christian/Judism genesis. The Apaches, Mayans, Hindus, Pagens, Pastafasarians’ and many other cultures, all have their beliefs. Why should Christians get to teach their beleifs about the Garden of Eden and no one can teach about the Great Mother Turtle Laying an Earth-Egg on a Mountain?
Fair is fair, says I.

G-d chose to create the world in such a way that he is concealed.
It looks as though it could have been created in a ‘set procedure’.
There is a part of G-d that He has confined to nature and this is the G-d we encounter daily. G-d is not limited to nature though and can change it if he so pleases and these are miracles.

oh and read ‘Darwin on Trial’.
GOOD book.

As far as I’m concerned, the “debate” about evolution was settled years ago. We can observe it happening all around us in the natural world. That said, there is no reason why a theist can’t accept evolution as a part of their belief system. It makes perfect sense to me that this is just another part of the universal life force that remains a mystery to us all.

The most interesting thing about science, is that it continually changes. Darwin’s interpretation of the things he observed..was wrong, and is not taught anywhere today as he first understood and wrote about it. Twenty years from now, it won’t be taught as it is taught today..That’s science, a very moving target..If there are absolute truths (And I believe there are), I would not expect them to change that much, or very often..I think the different world views should be taught the young, and as they mature, they will decide..To exclude creationism implies it’s lack of value, a disservice to the next generation..

It seems to me that there are two basic issues: Is there a God, as in a great creator? And, How did the universe and world as we know it come about?
The first question, “Is there a God?” has three pssible answers: “I don’t know”; “I believe in God”; and “I don’t believe in God”. Since God’s existence can neither be proven nor disproven emperically, this is the only one of the three that is a statement of fact rather than of faith. Atheists are as much people of faith as are followers of any religion. What they believe in, other than the nonexistence of God, varies from person to person.
If you believe in the existence of God, “creationism” versus “evolution” comes down to two questions: Is the first dozen chapters of Genesis both true and essential to total faith? The first readers of Genesis were Bronze Age men and women a very limited understanding of biology. Whether it was dictated by God or written by men, it was geared toward their level of undrstanding, and intended to serve as a guide on the relationship between Man, God and the universe. It seems to me as a person of faith that the debate then is over which method God used, and how long it took.

It seems that too many people confuse evolution and mutation. We observe mutation,but none of us has been (or will be) here long enough to observe evolution. Why do you think they call it a THEORY?– because that’s all it is: a theory.

I think both Hashem and evolution go hand in hand.

ah so much over so little!
it only matters to certain people. it becomes a problem if you are a kid who is taught ONLY this in school and then try to go to college. Colleges only except people who have learned the scientific way of looking at things-unless it is a religous run college.
with so many things we have problems with this is the least!

Thanks, Rabbi Brad, for questioning the use of the term “belief” with respect to evolution theory. There is so much confusion and poor understanding out there on the nature and meaning of scientific theory. It’s not a hunch, so another inappropriate use of the term is to say “well, it’s just a theory.” Rather, a theory is a way of organizing all kinds of related information…real information, based on observed events… into a coherent whole. The theory helps you to make sense out of the different streams of information, helps you to recognize how the observations that lead to those streams can be connected to each other. The theory “explains” the facts that have been observed. And, maybe most important, the theory will set up hypotheses about events that have not yet been observed, and if those hypotheses check out, that new information is said to confirm the theory. Evolution theory is powerful, because it explains so much, and because it predicts so much so well.
Of course it’s possible to recognize the power and validity of evolution theory and also to believe in God. There must be millions of people who, like me, see those two systems as compatible. I love the idea that evolution was laid down by God, but that idea doesn’t really qualify as a belief for me, it has no bearing on the strength of my faith in God,and I cannot imagine that it can ever be “proven”, at least in anyone’s lifetime. The strength and orientation of my faith can be studied scientifically, but the basis of that faith is not a scientific question. There was a famous French Jesuit priest, Taillard de Chardin (that may be just an approximation of his name), who did extensive research that supported Darwinian theory, and he wrote about it. There’s a marvelous book by Annie Dillard, who is herself a convert to Catholicism, called For The Time Being, that tells the story of that priest.
Thanks again for bringing up this important question.

G-d and science are one and the same. Who created the universe and all that is in it? This includes all the gases and elements that exisited since the beginning of time. “Let there be light” coinsides with The Big Bang theory. Adam and Eve represent the first humans that came after the prehistoric period. This is no mystery. How G-d did this is beyond human comprehension. Maybe man is not supposed to understand the whys and hows but just believe. The seven days it took to create the world could have taken eons. G-d only knows.

Random unguided mutation leading to more and more complex biological mechanisms is contrary to the way the life on this planet operates.

Re G-d only knows how long it took to creat the universe.
Ozar ha-Hayyim,pp.86b-87b quotes the words of a 12th century Kabbalist who proved, using only biblical quotations, that the world was 15 billion years old. In the 20th century the scientists, using every method open to them, stated that the world was 15 billion years old. So the “six’ it took to create the world and the evolution to the current day coincide with scientific views.

The predictive capacity of the Universal Theory of Our Evolutionary Creation is dwarfed by its retrodictive capacity. While, far more easily than otherwise, it can look backward and explain what has happened morphologically both as to ontogeny and phylogeny, it cannot look forward with certainty and predict what will happen for sure except within circumstances controlled by its predictors. The Theory has holes in it, of course, … holes that are filled by the faith of its believers, naturally reminiscent of our struggles with the Occidental Theory of Our Monotheistic Creation.