Turtles All the Way Down

Cambridge professor Stephen Hawking in his book, A Brief History of Time, tells the anecdote about a scientist who was giving a public lecture on astronomy. During questions, a woman stood up to disagree with what he had said and exclaimed, “The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist asked the woman what the tortoise was standing on, and the woman said, “It's turtles all the way down!”

Whether this story is fact or fancy it illustrates precisely what most scientists believe: all that exists is the result of natural phenomenon, one after another, from the beginning until now.

Praise be to God; I got off that train when I was five years old!