You might have heard the recent story of Günter Bechly, a distinguished German palaeontologist, whose page was erased from Wikipedia and who was fired from his prestigious position as curator of the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart. Bechly, a widely published scholar, has an insect, a genus and eight species named after him, yet he has been disowned by almost the entire scientific community. His heinous crime – coming out in support of intelligent design!
Why the overreaction and the panic? Why not ‘live and let live’, or ‘each person has his own truth’, and all other such modern-day slogans according to which nobody has a copyright on the truth, and that every belief, lifestyle and philosophy is acceptable. Why do scientists perform intellectual summersaults to make the theory of evolution plausible, and then resort to bullying tactics to turn it into the only one?
The answer may lie in this week’s Sedra, in which we read about the 7th plague that Hashem bought on the Egyptians, the plague of hailstones. As usual, they were given ample warning about the oncoming plague, and they were even given advice on how to avoid the worst of its effects. ‘And now send for and gather in the cattle and all that you have out in the field. Any man or animal which will be found in the field and not taken indoors will be struck by the hail and will die’. It would seem logical to take good heed of this warning and take all necessary precautions, even if only out of doubt. After all, Moshe had already accurately predicted a number of plagues, and he just might be right again. Why take any chances? However, as the Torah tells us, ‘those that paid no attention to the word of Hashem, left their servants and cattle out in the field’. Unbelievable!
Explains Rabbi Y Y Kanievsky, these people weren’t simply unconvinced that Moshe was telling the truth, they didn’t want to believe in him or in Hashem, because such belief would warrant some uncomfortable changes to their ideals and their lifestyle. By some funny quirk of human nature, a person has the ability to defy all logical arguments and to ignore facts staring him in the face, if acceptance of those facts would cause him discomfort. Their inaction in face of the oncoming plague was a matter of policy, not a matter of disbelief.
This is also the explanation for Bechly’s treatment. The blind faith in evolution, and the rejection of belief in a Creator so prevalent today, is not due to a lack of proof for the truth of Creation. Intelligent Design is so blatantly obvious, that every Jewish boy and girl of bar/bat mitzvah age is expected to believe in it. In the same way that any simple manufactured item has clearly been designed and created, and is not a result of some random accident, so too the huge complexity of one single human cell attests most eloquently to the intelligence of its Creator.
Those that believe in evolution don’t want to believe in a Creator, because such belief would have unwanted ramifications. If the world was created by Intelligent Design, then that Intelligent Designer must expect something of His creations, and would have found some way of communicating those expectations to them i.e. the Torah. Acceptance of the Torah would somewhat cramp people’s hedonistic, instant-gratification-seeking lifestyle, pushing people to reject belief in a Creator, and justify evolution at all costs. If we are only here in this world as a result of some random mutation, then we can happily adopt an ideology of ‘eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow we may die’.
Palaeontology – the study of fossils as a way of getting information about the history of life on earth – is a discipline which is crucial to the myth of evolution. If a prominent palaeontologist says that his discoveries ‘put the final nail in the coffin of evolution’, then that makes scientists feel threatened. That’s why Bechly’s ideas were received with such hysteria, to the point of him being virtually excommunicated. Anyone trying to expose the fallacies of evolution must be stopped come what may! We accept evolution as a matter of policy, not as a matter of belief! Please don’t ruin the party by preaching about intelligent design!
Good Shabbos, Rabbi Masher