Presence

There's a famous story, attributed to Bertrand Russell, commonly referred to as Turtles All the Way Down:

A well-known scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."

"If your theory is correct, madam," he asked, "what does this turtle stand on?"

"You're a very clever man, and that's a very good question," replied the little old lady, "but I have an answer to it. And it is this: the first turtle stands on the back of a second, far larger, turtle, who stands directly under him."

"But what does this second turtle stand on?" persisted the scientist.

To this the little old lady crowed triumphantly. "It's no use , you see -- it's turtles all the way down."

In his introduction to Frameworks Genesis, R. Matis Weinberg employs this parable to decry a type of Torah learning that is devoid of context, that explains away seemingly contradictory data points by simply "adding another turtle." Although he is discussing Torah, his underlying point is that, from a scientific perspective, we must work within the boundaries we are given. Positing another turtle is all well and good (it's called a hypothesis), but if you can not go back and show how that turtle fits into the entire system, you will likely end up publishing your work at Kinkos. Even more so, if its impossible for someone else to show your theory to be false (all it takes is one exception to the rule) then your theory is also not science.

It is here that the essential difference between Intelligent Design and Natural Selection is to be found. Darwin puts forth a theory that attempts to explain, through a natural process, the world as we know it. Anyone is free to look at the fossil record and point out where and when the theory works, and when it does not. This may lead, eventually, to the modification of the theory, in whole or in part, or to it being discarded in favor of some other theory, but it never once leaves the realm of the measurable or the testable.

ID does the opposite. ID takes the theory of natural selection, looks for holes and inserts its own explanation to the fill the void. There is no way for anyone to look back at the fossil record and confirm or deny the Hand of God in the evolution of the species. Injecting God into Evolution in the fashion done so by ID is no different than the old matron adding on another turtle to explain the latest data point. It's untestable, unmeasurable, and unfalsifiable. And as such, it is not science, and has no place in the science classroom.

Before you burn me at the stake, please keep in mind that none of this has any bearing on the truth of claims made by the proponents of ID. ID may be true, for all we know; some will tell you that belief in some for of ID is required of Orthodox Jews. I am, on a good day, far from a positivist as regards epistemology. It's one of the unique challenges of being a Jew today, dealing with the conflicts between religion and science. But for the sake of truth, let's make sure we understand where one ends, and the other begins.

יכול לא ישאל אדם מששת ימי בראשית ת"ל לימים ראשונים אשר היו לפניך יכול ישאל אדם מה למעלה ומה למטה מה לפנים ומה לאחור ת"ל (דברים ד) ולמקצה השמים ועד קצה השמים מלמקצה השמים ועד קצה השמים אתה שואל ואין אתה שואל מה למעלה מה למטה מה לפנים מה לאחור

Hagigah, 11B