Welcome to the website of Ohev Sholom -- The National Synagogue.

November 4, 2006

”Berayshit barah elokim et ha-shamayim v-et ha-aretz. V-ha-aretz haita tohu va-vohu.”

Whenever we read Berayshit, the book of Genesis, many of us turn automatically to thinking about the origins of our humanity – how we came to be as we are.

A literal interpretation of Berayshit, of course, suggests that Hashem created the world in six days, and that human beings – the target of creation -- were created in their present form on the sixth day. Moreover, a literal interpretation says that the world was created within the last 10,000 years.

This literal Genesis view, of course, appears to directly contradict the modern, scientific theory of evolution, which suggests that humans evolved from earlier species of animals, and that our humanoid cousins first appeared some 190,000 years ago -- billions of years, not days, after the universe came into being.

Our current form, according to evolution, came about through a gradual process of natural selection, sometimes called survival or, really reproduction, of the fittest. Moreover, nothing in science says we’re the end-point of evolution, so we don’t know whether or where we might in turn evolve. This superficial disagreement between science and religion about how we came to be as we are and whether we might still be evolving is at the heart of a public debate that has been playing out in over 30 American states for over 50 years. 

As a side note, this is not the only point of tension, right now, between science and religion, or, more accurately, between science and some religions. As science progresses, its findings and products inevitably encroach more and more – or abut against – issues of core human values and religious beliefs. After all, the purpose of science is to explain everything we can know about the nature of the natural world, and sometimes people don’t like the answers. The answers can conflict with their long-held religious beliefs, and often people just don’t like it. Often, their religious beliefs trump science in framing their views of the world.

The issue of embryonic stem cell research is an excellent additional example where science and some religious beliefs can come into conflict. We’re all, of course, familiar with the stem cell controversy. It’s often cast as a question about the potential therapeutic value of embryonic stem cells, but at its core, it’s a values controversy, not really a scientific one. Whether you’re in favor of our pursuing embryonic stem cell research really has nothing to do with whether you think it will or won’t eventually result in better treatments for devastating diseases. Most people’s views of the appropriateness of stem cell research are based on when they believe life begins – or when newly joined egg and sperm eventually become a person. 

Different religions have different views about all this. That, by the way, is also the origin of the views of diverse religions on abortion – it depends on when you believe life begins. And, by the way, science can’t help with that question – when life in the full human sense begins really is not a scientifically answerable question.

To stay with the stem cell research question for a minute, if you believe that life begins at the moment of fertilization, as do many fundamentalist Christians, you will be categorically opposed to embryonic stem cell research on the grounds that you are taking a human life. On the other hand, if you believe as Plato did, for example, that the human soul does not enter the body until birth, embryonic stem cell research is OK, since in stem cell research we’re talking about embryos that are only a few days post fertilization. Then, Aristotle believed life – or the soul -- was instilled at 40 days of gestation or embryonic development…so for him embryonic stem cell research would also be OK.

In Judaism, many have interpreted the Torah and the Talmud’s discussion of abortion as deriving from the belief that a fetus only acquires the full title to life – or its full humanness -- at the moment of birth. And this interpretation has been used to justify abortion to protect the mother’s life. But that does not mean that for Jews the embryo or fetus has no life status at all; it just appears not to have full humanness until it literally takes its first breath. Maybe Rabbi Herzfeld can help us more with this later.

Catholic dogma, by the way, has changed over time. Over the centuries, different Catholic theologians have argued different time points for when life begins. Some would have allowed stem cell research, but current Catholic dogma holds that life begins at the moment of fertilization…and therefore that embryonic stem cell research is unethical.

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Back to evolution. So, the public discussion now ongoing about teaching evolution in science classrooms really is a Berayshit problem. Some very conservative religious groups have been trying to undermine the teaching of evolution in public school science classrooms, because they believe evolution conflicts with their literal interpretation of the book of Genesis – that God created the entire world in six days and did so within the last 10,000 years. This view is often called “Young Earth Creationism”.

Of course religious or creationist objections to the teaching of evolution in schools is not new…it dates from at least the famous Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925, when a high school biology teacher named John Scopes was brought to trial for teaching the heretical theory of evolution in his classroom. Creationists kept their momentum going through the early 1980’s, when a court in Arkansas ruled that creationism is a religious view and should not be taught in public schools, period.

Well, creationism has itself now evolved into a new form, today called Intelligent Design. ID claims to believe in the gradual development of humans from earlier species, and in that sense it is in fact similar to evolution. However, Intelligent Design also posits that evolution was set on its path by an un-named intelligent designer who planned the whole thing in great detail with the goal of producing humans as the pinnacle of the process.

As evidence for intelligent design, ID advocates argue that evolution is an incomplete explanation that cannot account for everything now under the sun, and therefore that it’s flawed; they argue that one needs to invoke an intelligent designer to fill in the holes. ID advocates also claim that some things are so irreducibly complex that they could not have occurred through a process of random mutation or natural selection, as evolution suggests. There had to have been an intelligent designer.

Of course today’s irreducible complexity is tomorrow’s straightforward scientific explanation. Take the case of immune function, which until some 50 years ago was itself seen as unexplainable or irreducibly complex. Moreover, even if there are holes in evolutionary theory, that does not demand an intelligent designer. It only demands filling the holes as time goes by. That’s what science is about, after all.

ID advocates have claimed Intelligent Design to be a scientific alternative to evolution and that it should be taught alongside evolution in science classrooms. In fact, they invoke the fairness doctrine – teach or compare all scientific theories. It’s only fair.

However, we in the scientific community, argue that there’s nothing scientific about intelligent design – it is fundamentally a religious point of view and therefore should be kept out of the science classroom. Whether or not there was an intelligent designer is not a scientific question. The existence of Hashem or any other god concept is not a scientifically studiable question and therefore it’s off the scientific table. As the Nobel Laureate Leon Lederman says “before the big bang, it’s all up for grabs.” Moreover, no experiments have been proposed nor published in peer reviewed scientific journals to support the ID position.

By the way, we in the scientific community take no position on whether intelligent design is discussed in other, non-science classes. We’re only the protectors of the integrity of science education.

Our view was supported in December 2005 when Judge John Jones in Harrisburg, PA, ruled that ID is religion, not science, and therefore should not be taught in Dover, PA, science classrooms. In his ruling, Judge Jones said that intelligent design is not science. It “violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation”; it relies on “flawed and illogical” arguments. He ruled that it’s unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.

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But whether we teach evolution in science classes is not really the heart of this issue. The heart of the issue is whether we can fully reconcile science and religion. Can they co-exist side by side or not? Well, in the simplest sense, the data speak – they’ve done quite a good job of living together, in spite of the occasional disruptions, basically for centuries. Most mainstream religions don’t appear to have problems about where science is going or what we’re discovering. Moreover, many scientists are religious believers; a survey released this past month suggests that although some 60 percent of scientists say they are atheistic or agnostic about God, compared to 8% of the general public, 60% of scientists do say they are spiritual, and that has many different meanings for people. About 40% of scientists answer “yes” to the question of whether they believe in God.

But how do scientists reconcile scientific and religious beliefs? Some of the question has to do with how you see the Torah and how you see science. If you believe the Torah is a literal, word for word history of the world, well then, science is in trouble in your book. If, at the other extreme, you see science as answering or able to answer all human questions, then religion or God concepts are unacceptable to you. I by the way refer to them both as evangelical points of view – evangelical fundamentalist religion and evangelical atheism. I see both as equally ideological.

But scientists who are religious seem quite comfortable with their beliefs. And many religious people are quite comfortable with what science is telling us about the nature of the natural world. My friend Francis Collins is the Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at NIH – basically the human genome project. He is a world famous scientists who is also a self-declared born again Christian. In his recent book, “The Language of God”, Dr. Collins sees the Berayshit story as a poetic interpretation: “a powerful and poetic description of God’s intentions in creating the universe.” Dr. Collins argues that the detailed mechanism of creation is left unspecified, and so is suitable for scientific explanation. This view, by the way, is phrased differently from, but is rather consistent with, the view expressed in December 2005 by the Rabbinical Council of America.

But then some scientists should be counted among the evangelical atheists, like the British evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins. He’s just written a book, called “The God Delusion” where he argues science has disproved the existence of God. Most of my colleagues, religious or not, believe his arguments are unconvincing, because they can’t imagine how science can pose tests of the supernatural – we believe that science is appropriately limited to natural explanations of the natural world. 

For me, then, science and religion can successfully live together because they deal with separate domains. Science, if you like, deals with the question “what’s happening?” Religion deals with perhaps deeper questions of “why is it happening?” “What is the purpose and meaning of life?” And, of course, for many people, religion deals with questions of what happens after life….None of these are answerable by science.

I believe that these kinds of issues, and the need to reconcile science and religion will keep popping up more and more. As I look out at the world of science and its relationship with society, we are in many ways in the best of times and the worst of times…as Charles Dickens once said. Scientific progress is coming at a very rapid rate, with all of its promise for the betterment of humankind. And we want everyone to benefit from those scientific advances.

At the same time, as science progresses, it also will encroach more or more on issues of core human values…like when life begins or how we humans came to be as we are. In my own field of neuroscience, the more we learn about the nature and biological structure of the mind, the closer we get to threatening traditional concepts of the self or the soul.

This encroachment into the world of values, and at times traditional religious beliefs, has led to tension in the science-society relationship at a level unfelt before in my scientific lifetime. In order to reduce that tension, to ensure that science will progress, and that humankind will benefit fully from its promise, we need to find ways to come together – we, what I call the rational middle, between the evangelical biblical literalists and the evangelical atheists. We need to find common ground and common purpose to allow both science and religion to increasingly enrich our uniquely human lives.

Shabbat Shalom…