Posted on 04/18/2006 10:31:13 AM PDT by Zionist Conspirator
Did the software in the cell, DNA, write itself? Is genetic information the only information that science has ever encountered that was not generated by an intelligent agent? These are some of the questions raised by the scientific and cultural war going on over Charles Darwin's theory and its modern challenger, intelligent design.
In an April 6 Jerusalem Post op-ed, the writer and editor Larry Yudelson took me to task for arguing in numerous venues that the debate about Darwin is a crucial one for Jews who care about Judaism. If it was simply Yudelson offering his personal opinion that "Darwin is no problem for Jews" (the title of his article), I wouldn't have sought the generous permission of the editor to respond.
But given that Yudelson also summons no less a figure than Maimonides to the defense of Darwin, along with another rabbinic luminary, Abraham Isaac Kook, a response is necessary. MAIMONIDES lived seven centuries before Darwin presented his argument that natural selection operating on random genetic variation produced you and me. Yet Judaism's greatest sage of the past millennium was engaged in a strikingly similar scientific argument in his own time.
That argument centered on the question of whether the universe is eternal and without a starting point (the position of Aristotle) or whether it had a beginning in time at the moment of creation (Maimonides's view).
Larry Yudelson recommends to us the path of Maimonides, "who opposed his contemporaries who preached the eternity of the world simply because 'the theory has not been proved' (Guide II:25), while allowing that were it to be proved, it would not contradict the core Jewish beliefs."
I wish Mr. Yudelson had read that important chapter in Guide for the Perplexed more carefully. In fact, the sage writes that he rejects the eternity of the world for two reasons not, as Yudelson says, just one.
First, Maimonides rejected Aristotle's thinking on this point because it "has not been demonstrated." But second because it makes nonsense of the Jewish religion: "If the philosophers would succeed in demonstrating eternity as Aristotle understands it, the Torah as a whole would become void, and a shift to other opinions would take place. I have thus explained to you that everything is bound up with this problem."
Maimonides was saying that though parts of the Bible's text may indeed be interpreted in other than a literal fashion, there are philosophical reasons that make an eternal universe incompatible with the God of the Torah. Simply put, Aristotle makes God's role in the world, as a creator and guide, superfluous and impossible. AND DARWINISM does the very same thing, ascribing all creation to blind material processes, as Darwin himself wrote: "I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of natural selection if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent."
Maimonides would ask if Darwinism nevertheless has been "demonstrated." Well, Darwin's followers reached a high point of self-confidence in 1959 with the Centennial Celebration held at the University of Chicago to mark the 100th-year anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. The event was notable for the total conviction on the part of many speakers that any debate about Darwin was over and done.
But since then, the intellectual trend has changed directions. The Discovery Institute has compiled a list of Darwin-doubting scientists, a list currently standing at more than 500 doctoral researchers at places like Berkeley, Princeton and MIT.
It is now 71 years since Rav Kook died. So obviously in writing the beautiful and poetic words that Larry Yudelson quotes, Kook was not aware of the current state of knowledge about microbiology and the nanotechnology of the cell. Was Kook a close student of Darwin's writings or of the state of biology even in his own day? Is Yudelson?
In theory, it's very inspiring and idealistic to write, as Kook did, that: "In general this is an important principle in the conflict of ideas, that when an idea comes to negate some teaching in the Torah, we must not, to begin with, reject it, but build the edifice of the Torah above it, and thereby we ascend higher, and through this ascent, the ideas are clarified."
In practice, however, there is simply no way to reconcile an idea with its precise negation. The premise of Judaism is that God commands us on the basis of his having created us. The question before us, therefore, is not a simple-minded one of whether the universe was made in six calendar days, but rather of whether the universe has a need for a God, period.
In the philosophical system elaborated by Darwin and his disciples, there is no room for a creator in any sense. To explain the existence of life without reference to a deity was Darwin's entire purpose.
He developed a theory that answered his own purpose, certainly not ours as Jews. Given that his idea has neither been unambiguously demonstrated nor is it congenial to Jewish belief - the two-fold test of Maimonides - I am bewildered to find Jews who are committed to Judaism rushing recklessly to Darwin's defense.
Good Job! Thank you! I wish all the moderators would pull antagonistic baloney off the shelves...
This is a falsehood. The DI list contains some scientists who earned their Ph.D.s at Berkeley Princeton and MIT, but not a single current researcher at any of the three places.
"but not a single current researcher at any of the three places."
Because they reject evolution? That doesn't seem fair.
Klinghoffer is virtually alone among Orthodox Jews in attacking Darwin's theory. As I have pointed out elsewhere, most Orthodox Rabbis-- and all Conservative and Reform Rabbis-- have no problem with interpreting Genesis in a figurative way, so long as it is understood that (a) God created the universe, and (b) He created humanity in His spiritual image. How God did this is within the domain of science, and is really of little importance to Judaism.
I notice the both of you endorsed evolution without mentioning that you do or do not interpret the Torah literally once Adam arrives on Day Six. Did the two of you not read my comments in my initial post?
So are you two saying that "Orthodox rabbis" endorse the JEPD "documentary hypothesis" and the idea that the Torah is adapted from ancient Mesopotamian/Canaanite sources, or are you just hiding your own fundamentalism by implying your non-literal interpretation of Genesis 1 extends to the rest of the Torah as well?
I stand behind everything I said in my comments. Aside from a few "Modern Orthodox," academics, and Sefaradi intellectuals, all Orthodox Jews, whether creationist or evolutionist, morph into fundies once Adam arrives on the scene. If you dare to dispute these points, then say so instead of cowardly hiding behind implications of German higher criticism.
As for "reform" and "conservative" "rabbis," who gives a fig what the clergy of those supercessionist chr*stian wannabes have to say?
At any rate, I do not want to see yet another crevo thread move to the backroom - and especially not from the Religion Forum. Therefore this thread is being closely watched.
I do not support a "leftist government," nor am I, by any stretch of the imagination, even remotely a "leftist." Nor am I appeasing anybody. I think it's pretty easy for you to yell "appeaser!" from the safety and security of America, but it's my kids -- not yours -- who have to fight the Arabs when the day's done.
And no I haven't made aliyah yet, because leftists like you and others here masquerading as Israeli conservatives have made it impossible to practice political dissent in Israel WITHOUT BEING ARRESTED.
Sounds like a pretty weak excuse for simple cowardice. While you're denouncing Jews, practicing whatever you consider to be "political dissent" (sounds like a lot of misguided sixty-ish radicalism, if you ask me), the rest of us are actually fighting for our right to exist, making hard choices in order to preserve Israel's ability to defend ourselves from our neighbors.
Finally, if you feel that I can't speak on Israel's security because I don't live in Israel, THEN GET OFF FR, BECAUSE ITS IN AMERICA
No, you can speak about anything you like. I just think it makes you a hypocrite for you to denounce the IDF for being insufficiently aggressive, when as far as I know you've never been within 5000 miles of the business end of an Arab army. You want to defend strategically indefensible outposts from 50,000 Hamas terrorists? Go for it. But don't criticize me when I'd rather have my kid defending Israel from the combined armies of the Iranians, Syrians, Jordanians, Egyptians, etc. than defending 8 haredim in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. One's a real threat, the other is a mindless waste of a very limited supply of money and lives. Hypocrite.
Discuss the issues, don't make it personal.
No. Because they're not good enough.
You will note, btw, that all the "we Jews are evolutionists" posters have completely and studiously ignored my point: that authentic Orthodox Judaism, even if it has room for an evolutionary interpretation of the Creation itself (and this is not my position), insists that when Adam arrives on the scene that we are dealing from that point onward with real people and real events. Those Orthodox Jews who have issued pro-evolution statements (you will notice) avoid bringing this little point up but allow the listeners to draw the conclusion that Judaism tolerates higher criticism of the Torah. IT DOES NOT. And I defy any of the "we Jews are evolutionists" posters to deny this (and how many of these posters are members of heretical "branches" that deny that the Torah is from Heaven?).
Holocaust denial is a Divine punishment for Jewish silence in the face of Biblical criticism and Mircea Elide-style claims that the Torah is mythology.
So you personally know each and every one of them and have decided they aren't "good enough"? You are even smarter than I thought!
That's like saying that "except for a few Republicans, everyone voted for John Kerry."
The Rabbinical Council of America has no problem with evolution. Neither did Chief Rabbi Hertz or Chief Rabbi Kook. Except for Klinghoffer, I have not seen any Jewish writer attacking evolution.
If you dare to dispute these points, then say so instead of cowardly hiding behind implications of German higher criticism.
What does "German higher criticism" have to do with this?
As for "reform" and "conservative" "rabbis," who gives a fig what the clergy of those supercessionist chr*stian wannabes have to say?
Azoy redst vi a rebbe?
It was however one of Darwin's presupposition. As for the theory, does natural selection really explain the evidence as it claimed to do? What works against it is its gradualism, which does not seem to be reflected in the fossil record. But even in matters we can scrutinize closely , whether it be germs or fruitflies, have we eve seen the origin of species?
Fair enough. Thanks.
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