I feel like we're at the point where only those who celebrate their ignorance of science are willing to reject evolution. Unfortunately, that's a large part of Orthodoxy. If it's a point of pride that you don't know any science beyond what you were taught in 3rd grade, then it's going to be easy to reject anything. And that's a sad waste of mind. But among critical thinkers, I think the bigger issue is how to approach academic Bible study. That's where a large part of Modern Orthodoxy is just as backward as the people who still confidently say the universe is 6000 years old.
"“Is Modern Orthodoxy Moving Towards an Acceptance of Biblical Criticism?” is the title of the paper.
1) Does the paper give the answer "yes"?
2) If so, has the paper's conclusion been verified and confirmed by scholars as an accurate assessment?
I can't be bothered with the paper, because it's not a priority for me beyond marginal curiosity. Since you (and others) have read it, please answer the above two questions.
I don't observe a trend in that direction. That paper is already 8 years old. Other than TheTorah.com, I don't see academic Bible making inroads anywhere. Such topics are still forbidden in most shuls and Orthodox publications, sadly. Maybe in Israel it's different.
Hi Dr. Slifkin, does it worry you that most Jewish leaders throughout most of Jewish history have been incorrect about the above falsifiable claims (e.g. evolution, Copernican astronomy, kidney minds, etc.)?
Tbh I'm afraid that lowers my credence that Judaism is divine. Cuz the most learned Jews were (not agnostic but instead) demonstrably wrong so often but I'd love to hear how u approach the facts in this post.
The Gadol Hador Rav Dov Landau doesn't know how to repair air conditioners. Does this lower your credence in his Torah? This would be no different. Even if evolution would be correct.
And a serious national crisis in Israel, where the basic assumption is one cannot breathe indoors unless there is the mazgan on... Whoever has served in the IDF has suffered the default setting of 17 degrees Celsius in military bases around the country.
If he wrote a mussar sefer which incorporated some moshol about air conditioners that was not technically accurate, I wouldn't be bothered in the slightest.
I would. It means he could not be bothered to get the truth about something that is trivial to get the truth about. How good is he going to be at getting to the truth of deep matters? If someone gave you a moshol that was premised on the Sun orbiting the Earth, wouldn't you say "Get me outta here!"
Why do you say "could not be bothered to get the truth about something that is trivial"? Why do you think every technical detail of HVAC is trivial? I would have absolutely no problem if somebody said a moshol premised on the Sun orbiting the Earth. That's what it looks like to us anyways. The theory of gravity is not important for the moshol.
The details which they got wrong ARE NOT TRIVIAL. There are numerous halachos that are based on faulty scientific information. I will not enumerate them here as Rabbi Slifkin has written blog posts on this already. His position is to follow the opinion of Rabbi Herzog that sort of looks at Jewish Law as being canonized at certain time periods despite being based on incorrect information.
However, the question raised by Dov and David is not sufficiently dealt with by this approach since WHY would I accept a tradition that has so many laws based on misinformation.
I don't think you know how a moshol works. You draw a conclusion about an unknown scenario based on its similarity to known scenario. If the known scenario is not in fact known correctly, you don't have a functional moshol, and it's a waste of everybody's time. But if that's what floats your boat, fine with me. Enjoy your moshol!
Rabbi Slifkin has written a blog post about this which if I recall says something to the effect of the following:
We (the orthodox community) must be sympathetic towards those who have rejected the claims of Judaism precisely because of claims like yours and others that have no simple solution.
I believe he also said that he himself remains orthodox because of personal experiences and subjective feelings.
If we accept the Torah as a literal description of events and phenomena, then we would have to believe that the sky is composed of water walled in and it has windows that open to let the water fall.
Luckily we were able to get over such notions and have our views evolve.
"This is supported by a wealth of converging evidence along with testable predictions."
Except when those predictions fail. Then they make up a different evolutionary pathway that fits with the evidence. Normal science, but not testable predictions.
"It is of immense benefit in understanding the natural world - for example, it tells us why whales and bats share anatomical similarities with mammals, despite their superficial resemblance to fish and birds."
Creationism explains this just as well or better. The way evolution explains these aspects of the world is always through just-so stories.
"Most, though not all, biologists believe that random mutations, coupled with natural selection, broadly suffice to explain this mechanism. The issue is, however, of zero religious significance, as we shall explain in the answer to the next question."
The issue is of immense religious significance, since natural selection claims to explain the design of the world without a Designer.
"Judaism has always acknowledged that there are events which, in the physical world, appear to be random and happenstance. But it maintains that this does not rule out God's role behind the scenes. Indeed, this is the entire message of the Purim story! "
The comparison to the Purim story is a terrible one, since Purim was a neis nistar, while Creation is the greatest neis nigleh. Only somebody who denies miracles, like you, could say something like this.
2) False, a נס נגלה is a deviation from the natural world which manifests in the natural world. It doesn't make sense to talk about creation in such terms since it's the cause of and "preceded" the natural wold.
You are correct. Both creationism and evolution can explain the great adaptations that we witness throughout the world. However only one can explain the innumerable mistakes and blunders that we witness. Each eye contains blindspots, wisdom teeth coming to only some of today's people's. For example 100% of indigenous Mexicans don't get wisdom teeth. Whereas statistically you probably have gotten them and needed them removed. What kind of creator gives people a horrible gift like that, that they could scarcely take care of before modern times. I guess the same one that gave us a foreskin. Large amounts of women can barely give birth, that's if they have luck conceiving in the first place. Many die trying to fulfill this fundamental mitzvah, a horrible reproductive system only rivaled by the hyenas. This is easily explained by a relatively recent wide adjustment in our bodily posture but not by a loving creator crafting us perfectly in the seventh heaven.
Why would evolution predict "mistakes and blunders" any more than Creationism? According to evolution, "mistakes and blunders" ought to be selected against. Except when they're not. So organisms with "mistakes and blunders" are evidence for evolution. And organisms without "mistakes and blunders" are also evidence for evolution. What a convenient just-so story.
Wisdom teeth is an excellent example. "This fact alone could help explain how the lack of wisdom teeth evolved, Mann said: The pain could make one less likely to reproduce. That would favor people with the mutation, who would suffer less pain, he added...."Imagine a scenario where one evening a person is in serious pain from an impacted third molar," Mann said. "Their partner comes up and says, 'How about a bout of reproduction?' And the person says, 'Not tonight, dear, my jaws are killing me.'" https://www.livescience.com/27529-missing-wisdom-teeth.html What a great story that explains why most people don't have wisdom teeth. Except that most do. Oh well, I guess that's also evidence for evolution.
Creationism doesn't claim that humans and animals are perfect. The Rambam talks about that a material creation implies material imperfections. And humans were much less perfect 3500 years ago when the Torah was written.
Evolution predicts imperfections because it's not a perfect process. It does the best it can. It has no foresight. However a perfect god should by definition do things perfectly. Creationism certainly doesn't predict basic blunders that wouldn't occur by the most incompetent of doctors or engineers. Surgeons are constantly dealing with these errors. You know how many problems there are with the eye. How many different things go wrong. Anything that can go wrong does go wrong. Wisdom teeth being not fully selected out is only explainable by natural selection and makes zero sense according to any version of Creationism even if we cherry pick rishonim. 100% of indigenous Mexicans have zero wisdom teeth. This is optimal in todays age. 100% of aboriginal Australians have all their wisdom teeth. This has no explanation if we beleive in everyone being created in one spot and then branching out with no evolution occurring. Not to mention neither of those peoples existence can be explained by Jewish theology. Bith found on landmass the torahs writers clearly had no knowledge of.
Creationism predicts imperfections even more. Imperfection is not because God can't make a more perfect Creation-after all, He created angels, and could have made man like the angels-but because He chose to create Man from the lowly earth, and then once Man was expelled from Eden and especially after the Flood, he degraded even more. Anybody who reads about how Eve was cursed with dangerous and painful childbirth or how the lifespan of people decreased precipitously cannot come away with any other conclusion.
Evolution doesn't predict that indigenous Mexicans would have wisdom teeth and that Australians would not. It doesn't even predict the existence or lack of existence wisdom teeth in the first place. It's just a retrospective just-so story to explain literally everything.
1. Hyenas reproductive system is even more worse off than ours so perhaps Gods cursing abilities too are Imperfect.
2. You're confusing two concepts of perfection of the human form.
The perfection one would say of a god with ability to do everything, see all, fly etc.
And the perfection of the human form once created. If a chicken is born with three eyes you would agree that this was an imperfect chicken even though every chicken is in a metaphysical sense imperfect. Same with humans. A child can be born with some defects even though in some sense all humans are defected when compared to the beauty of an angel.
3. You are correct that the theory wouldn't make that exact prediction. What it would do is make the prediction that if a body part became useless due to a new environment and there was selection pressure it would slowly be removed from the population.
I am not bringing that example to prove evolution but rather to show the theory of evolution comforts more with our reality than creationism.
4. It is a difficult process because by definition everything has been affected by evolution so it must be invoked in every aspect of biological life. However that doesn't mean it can't be proven. It has in fact been shown to occur many times. The most frequent example would be organisms constantly adapting to our medicines and pesticides designed to fight them off. If evolution did not occur there would be no feasible explanation
1. Your point? If creationism predicts humans will be imperfect, all the moreso animals.
2. My point still stands. According to the Torah, neither humans nor anything else in this lowly world is supposed to be perfect. Nobody ever said otherwise.
3. But this example doesn't show that evolution comports more with reality than creationism. It shows absolutely nothing about evolution. You haven't shown that wisdom teeth has been removed or is being removed from the population. The most natural path for this Darwinian selection would be by indigenous Mexicans outbreeding everybody else because of their huge advantage of lacking wisdom teeth. Needless to say, this isn't happening. So if wisdom teeth have anything to do with evolution, it would be as evidence against evolution. But in reality, you have shown no connection at all.
4. The word "evolution" has been used in so many ways that it can mean almost anything. So you call anything adaptive "evolution", and then use viruses adapting to our medicines to proves that people descended from apes. That's just a ridiculous leap.
"However a perfect god should by definition do things perfectly."
Not necessarily:
"אליהו זכור לטוב שאל את ר' נהוראי מפני מה ברא הקב"ה שקצים ורמשים. אמר לו לצורך נבראו שבשעה שהבריות חוטאין הוא מביט בהן ואומר מה אלו שאין בהן צורך אני מקיימן אלו שיש בהן צורך על אחת כמה וכמה. אמר לו עוד יש בהן צורך. זבוב לצרעה. פשפש לעלוקה. נחש לחפפית. שבלול לחזזית. סממית לעקרב:"
Slifkin called Rav Lopiansky a non-rationalist because he is a student of Rav Moshe Shapiro and likes the Maharal's explanation of aggados. He's confused about whether Rav Dessler is "in or out" of rationalism
I'm constantly amused at those modern charedim who adore Maharal and aren't bothered by the fact that he held that ALL the Rishonim fundamentally didn't know how to learn Gemara.
The problem is your definition of an am haeretz is one says a statement about such things. It's not hard to deduce what someone read or how they read by reading his writings. Especially when one leaves sources for their ideas within their written works
Rabbi Lopiansky addresses that. He says in the 1500s it was still accepted to argue on Rishonim with harsh language. Additionally, the Mahral only does it in areas of aggada where he can claim to come with more sources than the Rishonim had, AKA kabbala.
Arguing on individual Rishonim about individual points is one thing. Claiming that ALL the Rishonim were fundamentally wrong in their basic approach to entire swathes of Gemara is something else.
As a lifeime medical scientist and Orthodox Jew, I have often answered the claims by some of my co-religionists that "science is the effort to deny G-d". My answer to that is that the more I learn about the workings of the human body and the physics of the universe, the more awed I am by G-d's creations. I and many of my Orthodox colleagues in the field of science and medicine generally hold the following to be true:
1) Time, as humans understand it, is significantly nonlinear. It is arrogant and ignorant for Man to believe that "seven days" in the mind of G-d and his process of creation is identifcal to seven rotations of the Earth, which we humans call days.
2) "Evolution" is simply the process by which G-d created Man: from chemicals, to amino acids, to biomass to Man. Hashem used the building blocks of the universe, culminating in his greatest creations - Man and Torah.
3) G-d, his hosts and the human soul (and its many dimensions) are unknown to us and incomprehensible. We humans cannot fathom the depths and breadth of Hashem's mind, power , holiness and reason. Our gedolim have just scratched the surface with the Zohar and Tanya, neither which claim absolute knowledge and certainty.
So as a Torah Jew one can learn from science a bit about Hashem's world and not be anxious about denial of G-d or blasphemy. If one is a physician, an archaelogist or a physicist studying string theory or quantum physics, he/she can believe that Hashem is One, his name One and that the Torah is true.
I posted the correct answers, but it was deleted. I didn't use a single bad word, mock anyone, etc. Just gave plain simple answers, the correct ones. Deleted. Meanwhile, the sole reply that got through before R' Slifkin deleted my comment was a personal attack that addressed no real point. It was not deleted.
What is so offensive about these answers that they are not allowed to be seen?
1) Evolution is alleged to have taken place over millions of years. But doesn't the Torah teach that the universe was created just a few thousand years ago?
The people who wrote the Torah did not know the true history of life or of Earth.
3) How can we accept scientific explanations for how animal life came about? It was God who made everything!
Every scientific theory is atheistic, that is they lack a god. There are no scientific theories that include a god. There is no difference between the scientific explanation for the planet's orbits vs the the scientific explanation for the history of life: they both leave out gods. It's like how medicine, being a scientific field, leaves out witches, curses, evil eyes, and sins as causes.
4) Doesn't the Torah say that animals and man were created from the ground, not from earlier creatures?
The people who wrote the Torah did not know the true history of life or of Earth.
5) Doesn't the notion of randomness in evolution contradict with the idea of a purposeful creation directed by God?
The challenge is not that evolution contains randomness, but that the theory works even if the raw material of changes is random. People like R' Natan Slifkin can propose that the randomness is only apparent, but the theory of evolution is sufficient: it successfully explains the history of life without any need for intent or design. His proposition is like proposing that an angel with a calculator is pulling the planets in their mathematical orbits: can't be disproven, but totally unnecessary.
6) Doesn't the Biblical concept of man being created in the image of God contradict the notion that man comes from animals?
The people who wrote the Torah did not know the true history of life or of Earth.
7) Don't most rabbis state that evolution is heresy?
The history of life does not care what any religion's leaders think about it. It's just what happened.
8) Doesn't evolution go against tradition?
The history of life does not care what any religion's traditions thought about it. It's just what happened.
9) But aren't there many secular evolutionists who use evolution to try to attack religious principles?
The science of evolution contradicts fundamentalist religion no more than the science of planetary orbits does: not literally, but pragmatically. It's not that it disproves fundamentalist religion, but that people who accept the true history of life are far less likely to accept fundamentalism, especially if they're taught evolution first and don't need to rationalize their fundamentalism. Both rabbis and scientists intuitively understand this, which is why it's still a thorn in fundamentalist religion's side.
10) You didn't answer all my questions and objections!
They all go away when you realize Orthodox Judaism isn't true.
"Most, though not all, biologists believe that random mutations, coupled with natural selection, broadly suffice to explain this mechanism"
I'm curious if anyone here can clearly elaborate on this point. Considering the high level of technology that humans (and animals) possess, and how difficult it is to create human-like robots with abilities comparable to what we have, isn't there a 0% chance we could have been formed by random mutations? I know there's a lot written about this, but if someone can present it clearly and concisely, I'd be interested in hearing. Tx
We've been attempting to create human like robots for a very short amount of time. It's absurd for one to think that we won't get there in the near future.
As to evolution, it is a non random process that uses material it acquires randomly.
I'm not suggesting we won't get there. I'm just pointing out the level of difficulty involved in getting there. At such a high level of difficulty, it seems unreasonable that such a thing can ever happen through random mutations and natural selection.
Do these people generally agree it is extremely unlikely, just there is no other plausible option, or do they believe it is actually very reasonable?
It is very simple to understand how a chimpanzee can evolve into a human. All it requires is a series of small changes. Less muscle mass, more neurons, bones slightly morphing to acquire an upright gait, smaller canines, nose going outward, etc. Selection pressure giving greater advantage to those who run upright rather than knuckle walking would explain the posture change. Similarly one can easily see how a monkey can evolve into a chimpanzee. A series of small changes. Losing the tail. Going up in size. More muscle mass. Increased propensity for violence. Losing the tail etc. Every line of descent is pretty simply understood. Natural selection is extremely likely to occur, including in many other systems with changing constituents. We see this in evolving fashion, economies, language etc. No language stays the same for long periods of time and neither does any species. It's unlikely for natural selection to specifically come to one type of organism. If small life forms were dropped on another planet that can sustain life it's very unlikely for it to develop in one form as a large brained two legged, two nippled, ten toed creature with a blindspot in each of its two eyes. Thus it is extremely unlikely for evolution to design us, just as it was extremely unlikely to develop the many types of octopuses or squirrels. But it is certainly very reasonable.
My question relates to the random forming of high level technologies like facial recognition, vision etc which I questioned the possibility and you are answering me with very low level changes which are much easier to digest.
Though something like vision is seemingly more complicated "The evolution of vision began with light-sensitive cells that allowed early organisms to distinguish light from dark, crucial for survival. Over time, these cells concentrated into pigment spots for detecting light direction, evolving in some species into pinhole eyes that could form basic images. Arthropods developed compound eyes for movement detection, while vertebrates and cephalopods evolved lens eyes capable of sharper, focused images. Later, color vision emerged to help species find food and mates, and binocular vision in predators improved depth perception for hunting. Each stage, building on the last, contributed to the complex vision systems animals use today."
In fact we can see many of these intermediate stages in extant creatures. Also we know that highly capable eyes have actually developed in several different lines of descent. For example we can see this by examining octopusses vision "In humans, the retina is "inverted," meaning light has to pass through layers of cells before reaching photoreceptors, creating a blind spot where the optic nerve exits the eye. Octopuses, however, have a "non-inverted" retina, where photoreceptors are directly exposed to light without a blind spot"
And now you have contradicted yourself. Before it was What has come naturally is so great how ever would humans be able to make it. And now it is precisely the opposite.
Even the earliest stages of vision development—like light-sensitive cells distinguishing light from dark—seem quite extraordinary to me. It's hard to imagine that such a precise, useful system could emerge on its own, even in its simplest form. While natural selection can account for gradual, systemic improvements, the initial complexity needed for basic function still feels remarkable and really difficult to explain absent some sort of divine guidance. And just because you find improvements along the way doesn't prove these happened unguided. Imagine finding a room with iPhones 1-10 and someone positing that it must have been a gradual, natural evolution
"And now you have contradicted yourself. Before it was What has come naturally is so great how ever would humans be able to make it. And now it is precisely the opposite."
Where did you get this from? I don't recall saying that at all. Is it possible your ability to read defenses is far superior to reading comments? :-)
Vision is a great example of the benefits of gradual evolution. The first "eye" was simply a sensory organ sensitive to light on prehistoric organisms. Then adaptive evolution made it more and more sensitive slowly adding abilities like sensing movement, then differentiating objects and colours, then focusing in on specific markers and patterns. At the same time the brain was evolving to process all information taken in via vision. We got our computers to crack facial recognition within about 50 years of the computing age. Evolution had hundreds of millions of years to achieve that specific technology.
The likelihood of something like life emerging could be high according to some scientists. I think it's an open and hard question whether evolution to produce humans is likely.
See the book evolution for dummies. it is not just random mutations. The so called laws of nature and natural selection are involvef. P.s. the fact that current technology can't create life or human robots had nothing to do with the chances of evolution.
I don't plan on reading this anytime soon. Not that I'm not interested, I just have limited time and it's not high on my priority list. Are you able to provide any key points?
And can you explain further what you mean in your p.s.?
"Why Evolution is True" by Jerry Coyne is also an excellent text aimed at the general reader. It is a few years old, and in some ways out of date because it does not fully reflect the avalanche of evidence from molecular biology.
I think once you understand more about it, learning more about evolution will jump several spots on your priority list. I haven't read that one but many other introductory books are great ex. Why evolution is true, the greatest show on earth etc
Just as science uses a different meaning for theory than in common speech, so too it uses a different meaning of “random.” In science, “random” means “not correlated to any other observation.” If dice gave higher results in summer than in winter, it would clearly not be random. But G-d could grab every single die as it thrown and cause it to give the result He wanted and we would call it “random” because we cannot observe Him doing it (as long as the statistics worked out).
Regarding a completely different subject, my daughter used the word hypothesis. I think that word is closest to the layman's understanding of the word "theory"
A hypothesis is a postulate, a theory is a model to explain a phenomenon.
General relativity was proven years after Einstein modelled it.
Evolution, particularly from a molecular perspective, explains diversity of the species. It can only be proved a posteriori, since we cannot sit down and wait for the time to see it happen.
But microevolution is constant and we see it, and even macroevolution has been seen over a span of a couple of decades in small reptiles like lizards separated geographically.
So let's say that so far no better theory explains the diversity of species.
The astonishing thing is that as Rabbi Slifkin mentioned in a previous post, the "Tzitz Eliezer" advised against kidney transplants because of the Talmudic opinion that the kidneys give counsel.
If after careful consideration a בעל חסד donates a kidney, it would be because of the council of the kidneys. So, on that level, if the council of the kidneys is deemed worthy, than the donor should listen to such council and donate the kidney. If the council is incorrect, than the donor might as well dispense with such faulty council by donating the kidney.
Another interesting anti-rational reason was given by another posek for not accepting (!) cornea transplants. ודי לחכימא
I feel like we're at the point where only those who celebrate their ignorance of science are willing to reject evolution. Unfortunately, that's a large part of Orthodoxy. If it's a point of pride that you don't know any science beyond what you were taught in 3rd grade, then it's going to be easy to reject anything. And that's a sad waste of mind. But among critical thinkers, I think the bigger issue is how to approach academic Bible study. That's where a large part of Modern Orthodoxy is just as backward as the people who still confidently say the universe is 6000 years old.
Modern Orthodoxy has already embraced Biblical Criticism, and many already reject the Divine origins of the Torah. See Marc Shapiro https://www.academia.edu/61794537/_Is_Modern_Orthodoxy_Moving_Towards_an_Acceptance_of_Biblical_Criticism_Modern_Judaism_37_May_2017_pp_1_29
Unfortunately, this trend seems to be getting worse.
"“Is Modern Orthodoxy Moving Towards an Acceptance of Biblical Criticism?” is the title of the paper.
1) Does the paper give the answer "yes"?
2) If so, has the paper's conclusion been verified and confirmed by scholars as an accurate assessment?
I can't be bothered with the paper, because it's not a priority for me beyond marginal curiosity. Since you (and others) have read it, please answer the above two questions.
Sorry, I couldn't be bothered to read your comment.
:)
I don't observe a trend in that direction. That paper is already 8 years old. Other than TheTorah.com, I don't see academic Bible making inroads anywhere. Such topics are still forbidden in most shuls and Orthodox publications, sadly. Maybe in Israel it's different.
Please list any scientific evidence the Torah was not written by one person. (Linguistic analysis is nice but it's definitely not a science.)
Which one person? The evidence is a thousand contradictions, redundancies, and obvious editorial insertions.
https://18forty.org/podcast/joshua-berman/
He's a minority opinion in the field and for good reason. But I am happy to see orthodoxy embrace new findings .
Strong evidence against being written by Moshe. See who wrote the Bible multiple parts at altercockermjewishatheist.blogspot.com
Altercockerjewishatheist.blogspot.com fixed typo
Hi Dr. Slifkin, does it worry you that most Jewish leaders throughout most of Jewish history have been incorrect about the above falsifiable claims (e.g. evolution, Copernican astronomy, kidney minds, etc.)?
Tbh I'm afraid that lowers my credence that Judaism is divine. Cuz the most learned Jews were (not agnostic but instead) demonstrably wrong so often but I'd love to hear how u approach the facts in this post.
The Gadol Hador Rav Dov Landau doesn't know how to repair air conditioners. Does this lower your credence in his Torah? This would be no different. Even if evolution would be correct.
No, but it lowers his credence in AC repair. That may cause a crisis of faith for a few.
And a serious national crisis in Israel, where the basic assumption is one cannot breathe indoors unless there is the mazgan on... Whoever has served in the IDF has suffered the default setting of 17 degrees Celsius in military bases around the country.
Saying idk (or what I called being agnostic) is not the same as giving incorrect instructions on how to repair air conditioners
If he wrote a mussar sefer which incorporated some moshol about air conditioners that was not technically accurate, I wouldn't be bothered in the slightest.
I would. It means he could not be bothered to get the truth about something that is trivial to get the truth about. How good is he going to be at getting to the truth of deep matters? If someone gave you a moshol that was premised on the Sun orbiting the Earth, wouldn't you say "Get me outta here!"
How is it easy to getbthe Truth about advanced knowledge of science that even the aristotelian experts of the time didn't know?
Why do you say "could not be bothered to get the truth about something that is trivial"? Why do you think every technical detail of HVAC is trivial? I would have absolutely no problem if somebody said a moshol premised on the Sun orbiting the Earth. That's what it looks like to us anyways. The theory of gravity is not important for the moshol.
Your premise is mistaken.
The details which they got wrong ARE NOT TRIVIAL. There are numerous halachos that are based on faulty scientific information. I will not enumerate them here as Rabbi Slifkin has written blog posts on this already. His position is to follow the opinion of Rabbi Herzog that sort of looks at Jewish Law as being canonized at certain time periods despite being based on incorrect information.
However, the question raised by Dov and David is not sufficiently dealt with by this approach since WHY would I accept a tradition that has so many laws based on misinformation.
I don't think you know how a moshol works. You draw a conclusion about an unknown scenario based on its similarity to known scenario. If the known scenario is not in fact known correctly, you don't have a functional moshol, and it's a waste of everybody's time. But if that's what floats your boat, fine with me. Enjoy your moshol!
Rabbi Slifkin has written a blog post about this which if I recall says something to the effect of the following:
We (the orthodox community) must be sympathetic towards those who have rejected the claims of Judaism precisely because of claims like yours and others that have no simple solution.
I believe he also said that he himself remains orthodox because of personal experiences and subjective feelings.
If we accept the Torah as a literal description of events and phenomena, then we would have to believe that the sky is composed of water walled in and it has windows that open to let the water fall.
Luckily we were able to get over such notions and have our views evolve.
"This is supported by a wealth of converging evidence along with testable predictions."
Except when those predictions fail. Then they make up a different evolutionary pathway that fits with the evidence. Normal science, but not testable predictions.
"It is of immense benefit in understanding the natural world - for example, it tells us why whales and bats share anatomical similarities with mammals, despite their superficial resemblance to fish and birds."
Creationism explains this just as well or better. The way evolution explains these aspects of the world is always through just-so stories.
"Most, though not all, biologists believe that random mutations, coupled with natural selection, broadly suffice to explain this mechanism. The issue is, however, of zero religious significance, as we shall explain in the answer to the next question."
The issue is of immense religious significance, since natural selection claims to explain the design of the world without a Designer.
"Judaism has always acknowledged that there are events which, in the physical world, appear to be random and happenstance. But it maintains that this does not rule out God's role behind the scenes. Indeed, this is the entire message of the Purim story! "
The comparison to the Purim story is a terrible one, since Purim was a neis nistar, while Creation is the greatest neis nigleh. Only somebody who denies miracles, like you, could say something like this.
' while Creation is the greatest neis nigleh.'
1) True, but no one was there to see it.
2) False, a נס נגלה is a deviation from the natural world which manifests in the natural world. It doesn't make sense to talk about creation in such terms since it's the cause of and "preceded" the natural wold.
You are correct. Both creationism and evolution can explain the great adaptations that we witness throughout the world. However only one can explain the innumerable mistakes and blunders that we witness. Each eye contains blindspots, wisdom teeth coming to only some of today's people's. For example 100% of indigenous Mexicans don't get wisdom teeth. Whereas statistically you probably have gotten them and needed them removed. What kind of creator gives people a horrible gift like that, that they could scarcely take care of before modern times. I guess the same one that gave us a foreskin. Large amounts of women can barely give birth, that's if they have luck conceiving in the first place. Many die trying to fulfill this fundamental mitzvah, a horrible reproductive system only rivaled by the hyenas. This is easily explained by a relatively recent wide adjustment in our bodily posture but not by a loving creator crafting us perfectly in the seventh heaven.
Why would evolution predict "mistakes and blunders" any more than Creationism? According to evolution, "mistakes and blunders" ought to be selected against. Except when they're not. So organisms with "mistakes and blunders" are evidence for evolution. And organisms without "mistakes and blunders" are also evidence for evolution. What a convenient just-so story.
Wisdom teeth is an excellent example. "This fact alone could help explain how the lack of wisdom teeth evolved, Mann said: The pain could make one less likely to reproduce. That would favor people with the mutation, who would suffer less pain, he added...."Imagine a scenario where one evening a person is in serious pain from an impacted third molar," Mann said. "Their partner comes up and says, 'How about a bout of reproduction?' And the person says, 'Not tonight, dear, my jaws are killing me.'" https://www.livescience.com/27529-missing-wisdom-teeth.html What a great story that explains why most people don't have wisdom teeth. Except that most do. Oh well, I guess that's also evidence for evolution.
Creationism doesn't claim that humans and animals are perfect. The Rambam talks about that a material creation implies material imperfections. And humans were much less perfect 3500 years ago when the Torah was written.
Evolution predicts imperfections because it's not a perfect process. It does the best it can. It has no foresight. However a perfect god should by definition do things perfectly. Creationism certainly doesn't predict basic blunders that wouldn't occur by the most incompetent of doctors or engineers. Surgeons are constantly dealing with these errors. You know how many problems there are with the eye. How many different things go wrong. Anything that can go wrong does go wrong. Wisdom teeth being not fully selected out is only explainable by natural selection and makes zero sense according to any version of Creationism even if we cherry pick rishonim. 100% of indigenous Mexicans have zero wisdom teeth. This is optimal in todays age. 100% of aboriginal Australians have all their wisdom teeth. This has no explanation if we beleive in everyone being created in one spot and then branching out with no evolution occurring. Not to mention neither of those peoples existence can be explained by Jewish theology. Bith found on landmass the torahs writers clearly had no knowledge of.
Creationism predicts imperfections even more. Imperfection is not because God can't make a more perfect Creation-after all, He created angels, and could have made man like the angels-but because He chose to create Man from the lowly earth, and then once Man was expelled from Eden and especially after the Flood, he degraded even more. Anybody who reads about how Eve was cursed with dangerous and painful childbirth or how the lifespan of people decreased precipitously cannot come away with any other conclusion.
Evolution doesn't predict that indigenous Mexicans would have wisdom teeth and that Australians would not. It doesn't even predict the existence or lack of existence wisdom teeth in the first place. It's just a retrospective just-so story to explain literally everything.
1. Hyenas reproductive system is even more worse off than ours so perhaps Gods cursing abilities too are Imperfect.
2. You're confusing two concepts of perfection of the human form.
The perfection one would say of a god with ability to do everything, see all, fly etc.
And the perfection of the human form once created. If a chicken is born with three eyes you would agree that this was an imperfect chicken even though every chicken is in a metaphysical sense imperfect. Same with humans. A child can be born with some defects even though in some sense all humans are defected when compared to the beauty of an angel.
3. You are correct that the theory wouldn't make that exact prediction. What it would do is make the prediction that if a body part became useless due to a new environment and there was selection pressure it would slowly be removed from the population.
I am not bringing that example to prove evolution but rather to show the theory of evolution comforts more with our reality than creationism.
4. It is a difficult process because by definition everything has been affected by evolution so it must be invoked in every aspect of biological life. However that doesn't mean it can't be proven. It has in fact been shown to occur many times. The most frequent example would be organisms constantly adapting to our medicines and pesticides designed to fight them off. If evolution did not occur there would be no feasible explanation
1. Your point? If creationism predicts humans will be imperfect, all the moreso animals.
2. My point still stands. According to the Torah, neither humans nor anything else in this lowly world is supposed to be perfect. Nobody ever said otherwise.
3. But this example doesn't show that evolution comports more with reality than creationism. It shows absolutely nothing about evolution. You haven't shown that wisdom teeth has been removed or is being removed from the population. The most natural path for this Darwinian selection would be by indigenous Mexicans outbreeding everybody else because of their huge advantage of lacking wisdom teeth. Needless to say, this isn't happening. So if wisdom teeth have anything to do with evolution, it would be as evidence against evolution. But in reality, you have shown no connection at all.
4. The word "evolution" has been used in so many ways that it can mean almost anything. So you call anything adaptive "evolution", and then use viruses adapting to our medicines to proves that people descended from apes. That's just a ridiculous leap.
"However a perfect god should by definition do things perfectly."
Not necessarily:
"אליהו זכור לטוב שאל את ר' נהוראי מפני מה ברא הקב"ה שקצים ורמשים. אמר לו לצורך נבראו שבשעה שהבריות חוטאין הוא מביט בהן ואומר מה אלו שאין בהן צורך אני מקיימן אלו שיש בהן צורך על אחת כמה וכמה. אמר לו עוד יש בהן צורך. זבוב לצרעה. פשפש לעלוקה. נחש לחפפית. שבלול לחזזית. סממית לעקרב:"
מדרש תהילים
י״ח
I hear. The basic errors are the central problem here though.
Rav Kook is a rationalist?
In the sense of being open to modern ways of thinking and responsive to new realities and scientific discoveries, yes.
And Aristarchus was for his heliocentrism?
I think this just demonstrates the nonsensical rationalist/mystic divide.
Slifkin called Rav Lopiansky a non-rationalist because he is a student of Rav Moshe Shapiro and likes the Maharal's explanation of aggados. He's confused about whether Rav Dessler is "in or out" of rationalism
https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/rav-dessler-in-or-out
I'm constantly amused at those modern charedim who adore Maharal and aren't bothered by the fact that he held that ALL the Rishonim fundamentally didn't know how to learn Gemara.
I'm constantly amused at amei ha'aretz who think they are qualified to make any statements about the Rishonim did or did not learn.
The Maharal rejected Copernicus and believed that the sun revolves around the earth. Was that a mashal also?
The problem is your definition of an am haeretz is one says a statement about such things. It's not hard to deduce what someone read or how they read by reading his writings. Especially when one leaves sources for their ideas within their written works
Rabbi Lopiansky addresses that. He says in the 1500s it was still accepted to argue on Rishonim with harsh language. Additionally, the Mahral only does it in areas of aggada where he can claim to come with more sources than the Rishonim had, AKA kabbala.
Arguing on individual Rishonim about individual points is one thing. Claiming that ALL the Rishonim were fundamentally wrong in their basic approach to entire swathes of Gemara is something else.
Interestingly, he's closer to the Rambam's worldview that aggadetas are allegorical than to 'mystics' who took them literally.
No, he's not. Because what Maharal defines as "aggadata" is not what Rambam (or anyone else) defines as aggadata.
Was Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan?
Rav Kook was Rav Kook. He was bigger and broader than what many of his students could handle.
The same could be said of Rav Soloveitchik.
Or R. Yisrael Salanter.
That's my point. None of them fit in these neat boxes, I just thought Rav Kook was especially egregious to be on his list.
As a lifeime medical scientist and Orthodox Jew, I have often answered the claims by some of my co-religionists that "science is the effort to deny G-d". My answer to that is that the more I learn about the workings of the human body and the physics of the universe, the more awed I am by G-d's creations. I and many of my Orthodox colleagues in the field of science and medicine generally hold the following to be true:
1) Time, as humans understand it, is significantly nonlinear. It is arrogant and ignorant for Man to believe that "seven days" in the mind of G-d and his process of creation is identifcal to seven rotations of the Earth, which we humans call days.
2) "Evolution" is simply the process by which G-d created Man: from chemicals, to amino acids, to biomass to Man. Hashem used the building blocks of the universe, culminating in his greatest creations - Man and Torah.
3) G-d, his hosts and the human soul (and its many dimensions) are unknown to us and incomprehensible. We humans cannot fathom the depths and breadth of Hashem's mind, power , holiness and reason. Our gedolim have just scratched the surface with the Zohar and Tanya, neither which claim absolute knowledge and certainty.
So as a Torah Jew one can learn from science a bit about Hashem's world and not be anxious about denial of G-d or blasphemy. If one is a physician, an archaelogist or a physicist studying string theory or quantum physics, he/she can believe that Hashem is One, his name One and that the Torah is true.
I posted the correct answers, but it was deleted. I didn't use a single bad word, mock anyone, etc. Just gave plain simple answers, the correct ones. Deleted. Meanwhile, the sole reply that got through before R' Slifkin deleted my comment was a personal attack that addressed no real point. It was not deleted.
What is so offensive about these answers that they are not allowed to be seen?
1) Evolution is alleged to have taken place over millions of years. But doesn't the Torah teach that the universe was created just a few thousand years ago?
The people who wrote the Torah did not know the true history of life or of Earth.
3) How can we accept scientific explanations for how animal life came about? It was God who made everything!
Every scientific theory is atheistic, that is they lack a god. There are no scientific theories that include a god. There is no difference between the scientific explanation for the planet's orbits vs the the scientific explanation for the history of life: they both leave out gods. It's like how medicine, being a scientific field, leaves out witches, curses, evil eyes, and sins as causes.
4) Doesn't the Torah say that animals and man were created from the ground, not from earlier creatures?
The people who wrote the Torah did not know the true history of life or of Earth.
5) Doesn't the notion of randomness in evolution contradict with the idea of a purposeful creation directed by God?
The challenge is not that evolution contains randomness, but that the theory works even if the raw material of changes is random. People like R' Natan Slifkin can propose that the randomness is only apparent, but the theory of evolution is sufficient: it successfully explains the history of life without any need for intent or design. His proposition is like proposing that an angel with a calculator is pulling the planets in their mathematical orbits: can't be disproven, but totally unnecessary.
6) Doesn't the Biblical concept of man being created in the image of God contradict the notion that man comes from animals?
The people who wrote the Torah did not know the true history of life or of Earth.
7) Don't most rabbis state that evolution is heresy?
The history of life does not care what any religion's leaders think about it. It's just what happened.
8) Doesn't evolution go against tradition?
The history of life does not care what any religion's traditions thought about it. It's just what happened.
9) But aren't there many secular evolutionists who use evolution to try to attack religious principles?
The science of evolution contradicts fundamentalist religion no more than the science of planetary orbits does: not literally, but pragmatically. It's not that it disproves fundamentalist religion, but that people who accept the true history of life are far less likely to accept fundamentalism, especially if they're taught evolution first and don't need to rationalize their fundamentalism. Both rabbis and scientists intuitively understand this, which is why it's still a thorn in fundamentalist religion's side.
10) You didn't answer all my questions and objections!
They all go away when you realize Orthodox Judaism isn't true.
The Challenge Of Creation - Rabbi Slifkin - Part One two and three at altercockerjewishatheist.blogspot.com critiques the book.
"Most, though not all, biologists believe that random mutations, coupled with natural selection, broadly suffice to explain this mechanism"
I'm curious if anyone here can clearly elaborate on this point. Considering the high level of technology that humans (and animals) possess, and how difficult it is to create human-like robots with abilities comparable to what we have, isn't there a 0% chance we could have been formed by random mutations? I know there's a lot written about this, but if someone can present it clearly and concisely, I'd be interested in hearing. Tx
We've been attempting to create human like robots for a very short amount of time. It's absurd for one to think that we won't get there in the near future.
As to evolution, it is a non random process that uses material it acquires randomly.
I'm not suggesting we won't get there. I'm just pointing out the level of difficulty involved in getting there. At such a high level of difficulty, it seems unreasonable that such a thing can ever happen through random mutations and natural selection.
Do these people generally agree it is extremely unlikely, just there is no other plausible option, or do they believe it is actually very reasonable?
It is very simple to understand how a chimpanzee can evolve into a human. All it requires is a series of small changes. Less muscle mass, more neurons, bones slightly morphing to acquire an upright gait, smaller canines, nose going outward, etc. Selection pressure giving greater advantage to those who run upright rather than knuckle walking would explain the posture change. Similarly one can easily see how a monkey can evolve into a chimpanzee. A series of small changes. Losing the tail. Going up in size. More muscle mass. Increased propensity for violence. Losing the tail etc. Every line of descent is pretty simply understood. Natural selection is extremely likely to occur, including in many other systems with changing constituents. We see this in evolving fashion, economies, language etc. No language stays the same for long periods of time and neither does any species. It's unlikely for natural selection to specifically come to one type of organism. If small life forms were dropped on another planet that can sustain life it's very unlikely for it to develop in one form as a large brained two legged, two nippled, ten toed creature with a blindspot in each of its two eyes. Thus it is extremely unlikely for evolution to design us, just as it was extremely unlikely to develop the many types of octopuses or squirrels. But it is certainly very reasonable.
My question relates to the random forming of high level technologies like facial recognition, vision etc which I questioned the possibility and you are answering me with very low level changes which are much easier to digest.
Though something like vision is seemingly more complicated "The evolution of vision began with light-sensitive cells that allowed early organisms to distinguish light from dark, crucial for survival. Over time, these cells concentrated into pigment spots for detecting light direction, evolving in some species into pinhole eyes that could form basic images. Arthropods developed compound eyes for movement detection, while vertebrates and cephalopods evolved lens eyes capable of sharper, focused images. Later, color vision emerged to help species find food and mates, and binocular vision in predators improved depth perception for hunting. Each stage, building on the last, contributed to the complex vision systems animals use today."
In fact we can see many of these intermediate stages in extant creatures. Also we know that highly capable eyes have actually developed in several different lines of descent. For example we can see this by examining octopusses vision "In humans, the retina is "inverted," meaning light has to pass through layers of cells before reaching photoreceptors, creating a blind spot where the optic nerve exits the eye. Octopuses, however, have a "non-inverted" retina, where photoreceptors are directly exposed to light without a blind spot"
And now you have contradicted yourself. Before it was What has come naturally is so great how ever would humans be able to make it. And now it is precisely the opposite.
Even the earliest stages of vision development—like light-sensitive cells distinguishing light from dark—seem quite extraordinary to me. It's hard to imagine that such a precise, useful system could emerge on its own, even in its simplest form. While natural selection can account for gradual, systemic improvements, the initial complexity needed for basic function still feels remarkable and really difficult to explain absent some sort of divine guidance. And just because you find improvements along the way doesn't prove these happened unguided. Imagine finding a room with iPhones 1-10 and someone positing that it must have been a gradual, natural evolution
"And now you have contradicted yourself. Before it was What has come naturally is so great how ever would humans be able to make it. And now it is precisely the opposite."
Where did you get this from? I don't recall saying that at all. Is it possible your ability to read defenses is far superior to reading comments? :-)
Vision is a great example of the benefits of gradual evolution. The first "eye" was simply a sensory organ sensitive to light on prehistoric organisms. Then adaptive evolution made it more and more sensitive slowly adding abilities like sensing movement, then differentiating objects and colours, then focusing in on specific markers and patterns. At the same time the brain was evolving to process all information taken in via vision. We got our computers to crack facial recognition within about 50 years of the computing age. Evolution had hundreds of millions of years to achieve that specific technology.
The likelihood of something like life emerging could be high according to some scientists. I think it's an open and hard question whether evolution to produce humans is likely.
See the book evolution for dummies. it is not just random mutations. The so called laws of nature and natural selection are involvef. P.s. the fact that current technology can't create life or human robots had nothing to do with the chances of evolution.
I don't plan on reading this anytime soon. Not that I'm not interested, I just have limited time and it's not high on my priority list. Are you able to provide any key points?
And can you explain further what you mean in your p.s.?
"Why Evolution is True" by Jerry Coyne is also an excellent text aimed at the general reader. It is a few years old, and in some ways out of date because it does not fully reflect the avalanche of evidence from molecular biology.
I think once you understand more about it, learning more about evolution will jump several spots on your priority list. I haven't read that one but many other introductory books are great ex. Why evolution is true, the greatest show on earth etc
Just as science uses a different meaning for theory than in common speech, so too it uses a different meaning of “random.” In science, “random” means “not correlated to any other observation.” If dice gave higher results in summer than in winter, it would clearly not be random. But G-d could grab every single die as it thrown and cause it to give the result He wanted and we would call it “random” because we cannot observe Him doing it (as long as the statistics worked out).
Regarding a completely different subject, my daughter used the word hypothesis. I think that word is closest to the layman's understanding of the word "theory"
A hypothesis is a postulate, a theory is a model to explain a phenomenon.
General relativity was proven years after Einstein modelled it.
Evolution, particularly from a molecular perspective, explains diversity of the species. It can only be proved a posteriori, since we cannot sit down and wait for the time to see it happen.
But microevolution is constant and we see it, and even macroevolution has been seen over a span of a couple of decades in small reptiles like lizards separated geographically.
So let's say that so far no better theory explains the diversity of species.
"A hypothesis is a postulate"
No it isn't.
We actually don’t know with certainty about the heart and kidneys. We are learning a lot about the whole body
People with no kidneys and with heart transplants/on heart bypass machines still have their "minds". Our minds aren't located in these organs.
The astonishing thing is that as Rabbi Slifkin mentioned in a previous post, the "Tzitz Eliezer" advised against kidney transplants because of the Talmudic opinion that the kidneys give counsel.
If after careful consideration a בעל חסד donates a kidney, it would be because of the council of the kidneys. So, on that level, if the council of the kidneys is deemed worthy, than the donor should listen to such council and donate the kidney. If the council is incorrect, than the donor might as well dispense with such faulty council by donating the kidney.
Another interesting anti-rational reason was given by another posek for not accepting (!) cornea transplants. ודי לחכימא
There's a reason the internet atheist movement is personified by a neckbeard in a fedora, and you just reminded me why.