Chazal, Science, Controversy ... - Slifkin

ForeverYoung
Guest

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 11:54 am

He also said:

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A scientist is constantly discovering new things, and he knows that yesterday he knew less than today. With this approach you can make progress.”

which means that scientists know that THEORIES are just that. Ezactly what they're called.

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rather, speak to scientists in their language.

the language of science is evidence, proves, experiments, logical arguments; as apposed to feelings, emotions and unfounded assumptions.

I do not think he ment re-writing Chumash with fancy scientific words.

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it is accepted as fact by most people and most scientists which you will notice if you pick up most magazines (Newsweek, Time) and just about anything out there

this was taught as a fact in the Soviet/ Socialist coulntires who needed a definite prove of the absence of G-d.

And the press is written for readers.
Scientists do not regard it as an authorative reflection of the scientific knowledge. Lay people do.

gryp

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 12:01 pm

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Scientists do not regard it as an authorative reflection of the scientific knowledge. Lay people do.

remember the science textbooks we used in school as kids? they mention the word "theory" once in the first chapter, and thats it. they (people who wrote them and teachers) are very proud of these theories and pretty much consider them facts because they have no other answer.

if you ask the typical not-religious person on the street how the world got here they will tell you about the bigbang and how we came from monkeys. they do consider this the only possible theories and since everyone agrees it becomes factual.

Motek

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 12:06 pm

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which means that scientists know that THEORIES are just that

yet, they treat them as fact as mentioned earlier

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I do not think he ment re-writing Chumash with fancy scientific words.

nor do I

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Scientists do not regard it as an authorative reflection of the scientific knowledge. Lay people do.

some facts here:

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"It is true that during the 20th century, many scientists accepted Evolutionism, in part or in whole. As secular science writer Richard Milton recently observed:

"An important factor in bringing about the universal dominance and acceptance of Darwinian evolution has been that virtually every eminent professional scientist appointed to posts in the life sciences in the last 40 or 50 years, in the English-speaking world, has been a convinced Darwinist. ...These men, as well as occupying powerful and important academic teaching positions, were also prolific and important writers whose influence has been widespread in forming the consensus."

These names include such men as Gavin de Beer, Julian Huxley, J.B.S. Haldane, C.H. Waddington, Ernst Mayr, Theodosius Dobzhansky and George Simpson.

Despite strong pressure to accept evolutionism, many intelligent and experienced scientists either openly or secretly dismiss Evolution as highly unlikely or impossible. In the 1980s, researcher and lecturer David Watson noted an increasing trend that continues today, disturbing those who want evolutionism to be perceived as the accepted scientific consensus:

"...A tidal wave of new books... threaten to shatter that confidence - titles like Darwin Retried (1971), Macbeth; The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong (1982), Hitching; The Great Evolution Mystery (1983), Taylor; The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution (1984), Fix; Darwin Was Wrong - A Study in Probabilities (1984), Cohen; Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth (1987), Lovtrup; and Adam and Evolution (1984), Pitman. Not one of these books was written from a Christian-apologetic point of view: they are concerned only with scientific truth - as was Sir Ernst Chain when he called evolution 'a fairy tale'."

As Science Digest reported:

"Scientists who utterly reject Evolution may be one of our fastest-growing controversial minorities... Many of the scientists supporting this position hold impressive credentials in science."

One example is the late Dr. Arthur E. Wilder-Smith, an honored scientist with an amazing three earned doctorates. He held many distinguished positions. A former Evolutionist, Dr. Wilder-Smith debated various leading scientists on the subject throughout the world. In his opinion, the Evolution model did not fit as well with the established facts of science as did the Creation model of intelligent design.

"The Evolutionary model says that it is not necessary to assume the existence of anything, besides matter and energy, to produce life. That proposition is unscientific. We know perfectly well that if you leave matter to itself, it does not organize itself - in spite of all the efforts in recent years to prove that it does."

Secular researcher Richard Milton summarized the current world situation: "Darwinism has never had much appeal for science outside of the English-speaking world, and has never appealed much to the American public (although popular with the U.S. scientific establishment in the past). However, its ascendancy in science, in both Britain and America, has been waning for several decades as its grip has weakened in successive areas: geology; paleontology; embryology; comparative anatomy. Now even geneticists are beginning to have doubts. It is only in mainstream molecular biology and zoology that Darwinism retains serious enthusiastic supporters. As growing numbers of scientists begin to drift away from neo-Darwinist ideas, the revision of Darwinism at the public level is long overdue, and is a process that I believe has already started."

ForeverYoung
Guest

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 12:14 pm

as we can see from your quote, when people needed to deny G-d, they embraced Darvinism, but as the facts were showing it to be wrong, the scientists faced the truth.
lay population didn't, but the scientists did.

Motek

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 12:34 pm

ForeverYoung wrote:

the scientists faced the truth.

it says a "controversial MINORITY" disagree

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lay population didn't, but the scientists did.

the population at large hasn't because MOST SCIENTISTS HAVEN'T

ForeverYoung
Guest

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 12:44 pm

it would be nice if you dated the quotes to see where the progress is taking us.

Scientists know that darvinism is a theory taht still needs to be proven

gryp

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 2:27 pm

FY- of course they know it is a theory, but some theories like this one people consider to be facts because it is the only thing they can think of.

Yael

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 3:14 pm

when people ask the question where did humans come from to a darwin believing scientist and he says from monkeys,
I dont know how some people can actually accept that as an answer!! that humans came from monkeys!! it doesnt answer the question of how we were created b/c then how were monkeys created? does any scientist have an answer for that one?
to me it seems like the monkeys answer is given just to push off having to really answer the question. the question isnt in what way did humans evolve but rather how were beings created? animals and humans alike. Someone (Hashem obviously) had to create them.

gryp

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 3:25 pm

yael we know that. but people really do believe in it. I hear it all the time.

sarahd

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 3:37 pm

People might find this interesting. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02.....=5070
He speaks about the reasons he believes in Intelligent Design. (Not trying to disprove evolution, though, or so he says.)

Motek

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 3:53 pm

sarahd - I answered the question you asked me a while back, but haven't seen your response to mine

sarahd

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 4:15 pm

What was your question?

Motek

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 4:17 pm

p. 4 about "hear hear"

sarahd

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 4:22 pm

Oh. Hear, hear was in reaction to Yehudis' second to last statement on page 3.

yehudis

Tue, Feb 08 2005, 5:34 pm

Motek -- this is from the article you posted, on aish.com:

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Nachmanides says the text uses the words "Vayehi Erev" -- but it doesn't mean "there was evening." He explains that the Hebrew letters Ayin, Resh, Bet -- the root of "erev" -- is chaos. Mixture, disorder. That's why evening is called "erev", because when the sun goes down, vision becomes blurry. The literal meaning is "there was disorder." The Torah's word for "morning" -- "boker" -- is the absolute opposite. When the sun rises, the world becomes "bikoret", orderly, able to be discerned. That's why the sun needn't be mentioned until Day Four. Because from erev to boker is a flow from disorder to order, from chaos to cosmos.

Rivka

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 5:09 am

Lets get back to Monkey theory....have you ever asked someone if humans came from monkeys how come there are monkeys still and I don't recall them finding a human escape the monkey trees coz suddenly evolution got to him quicker than his monkey pals.
I mean if someone told me I came from a monkey I would take that as an insult. So why do people take it as fact and complete truth? I don't get it. I mean does evolution only work for a few years and then stops. So the monkies that thought they were going to be human were dissapointed with the fact evolution stopped working at after their Uncle Bob??

Big Bang theory is something they made up to explain everything. But if it were true there would be more big bangs and more worlds out there...aaah this is where the alien theory comes in. There have been more big bangs and that is why aliens who seem to be more scientifically advanced have come to the world to visit...generally going to the US, but after a while suddenly to other places, just to make everyone feel worthy. I think you must take science with a pinch of salt. Half of it doesn't make sense and they make it make sense with even less sense.

Anny

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 8:09 pm

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Big Bang theory is something they made up to explain everything

H' said, and "BANG", it happened!

Smile

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 9:11 pm

Okay, people. If you want to discuss evolution, please at least read up on it and find out what you are talking about because this whole end bit about where monkeys came from and big bang aliens is silly. I personally don't believe in evolution because the world seems too complex to have been created by a series of random genetic mutations.

But if you want to argue against the theory, at least get it right :
Darwinism is a complex system of beliefs- two major points are random genetic mutations and natural selection. Some primoridial mass from the sea somehow mutated and one of the mutations was more favorable to the survival of the organism (example, a mouth-like opening for eating food) and so the organisms that survived best now had this mutation. Over billions of years, many more mutations took place, slowly evolving some simple sea slugs to fish to animals and then to human form. It is not clear whether evolution takes places slowly through many minute, almost invisible adjustements or if it takes place in rapid bursts. That is the very basics of life on earth according to evolution.

There are a lot of difficulties that make believing in evolution difficult- it is hard to look around and imagine that all of this world is just a result of random genetic mutations -basically a series of freak accidents. I also have some serious questions about the rate of evolution and why humans have not evolved ( even minutely) into some better species. Natural selection is also full of difficulties- why are some characteristics that seem to be better for survival not spreading to the rest of the population- intelligence or beauty for example ?

However, if you look at it from the point of view of a secular scientist with no foundation in religious thought, evolution is a very attractive theory- there are many, many pieces of evidence that seem to support it. Many animals and fish and people share a large amount of genetic material. People differ from monkeys by a very small fraction of a gene, I once read. There are animals that seem to stand between one species and another, just like natural selection would have you believe ( amphibians, lungfish etc.)

A more interesting question is why would Hashem have created the world in such a way that people will get confused and believe in evolution ? If your answer is along the lines of free will, keep in mind that until Darwin, everyone believed in creationism. Why the change ?

Motek

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 9:39 pm

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However, if you look at it from the point of view of a secular scientist with no foundation in religious thought, evolution is a very attractive theory- there are many, many pieces of evidence that seem to support it.

it's attractive not because of the evidence, which is weak to ridiculous, but because by eliminating a Creator from the scene, there are no responsibilities, yay!

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There are animals that seem to stand between one species and another

there are Torah sources that say that, I.e. that which bridges the inaminate and plant life, that which bridges plant life and animal life, and that which bridges animal life and humans

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A more interesting question is why would Hashem have created the world in such a way that people will get confused and believe in evolution ? If your answer is along the lines of free will, keep in mind that until Darwin, everyone believed in creationism. Why the change ?

zeh l'umas zeh - Hashem created the world so that kedusha corresponds to tuma

the more the revelations of chasidus became revealed to the world, the more shtusim became revealed

ForeverYoung
Guest

Wed, Feb 09 2005, 10:18 pm

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Okay, people. If you want to discuss evolution, please at least read up on it and find out what you are talking about because

so far, I didn't see any evidence that people didn't know what they're talking about.
Actually, a few of us were thoroughly educated about it in school

on to the topic

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if you look at it from the point of view of a secular scientist with no foundation in religious thought, evolution is a very attractive theory- there are many, many pieces of evidence that seem to support it.

Darvin himself said it's a theory that needs to be proven

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Over billions of years, many more mutations took place, slowly evolving some simple sea slugs to fish to animals and then to human form.

this is what Darvin said will have to be proven by archeologists who should have found soon MANY transitional forms of life.
However, they found none.

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It is not clear whether evolution takes places slowly through many minute, almost invisible adjustements or if it takes place in rapid bursts

regardless of how it happened,
the problems are as follows:
(pls read everything, I address ALL issues)

let's take a bird

1.if a bird used to be a salamander, there should be transitional 'species' with half wings. none were found. This is where Darvin's theory ends.

2. In the "survival of the fittest, strongest", bird with half wings that were at disadvantage, b/c wings that are too small to fly wil lget in the way when running away from a predator. Hence, the transitional species would not survive & more comples ones would not develope. This is where Darvin's theory continues to end

3. If the wings would have appeared as a result of a sudden mutation, there would be the following problems: 1. no muscles to operate those wings, 2. even if the muscles 'came' together witht the wings the cardivascular system wouldn't be strong enough to support such strenious activity as flying 3. the digestive tract/ system wouldn not be able to supply enough energy for such strain on the muscles.
If such mutation would have happened, the new species would not survive

4. Today the scientists were able to observe several various mutations, which appeard after massive releases of radioactive material in Japan, Ukraine. none of the mutations were productive, and they were not able to reproduce

5. No new gradual developenet of a new species had happened since the scientists began to classify the info about all living creatures

6. Also, since that time, no species became what their ancestors managed to become years ago.
(ie, no monkies jumped off the trees & joind our scociety)