Tuesday, November 02, 2010

differing philosophies

John Gribbin begins his book "The Scientists" with the following:
The most important thing that science has taught us about our place in the Universe is that we are not special. The process began with the work of Nicholas Copernicus in the sixteenth century, which suggested that the Earth is not the center of the Universe, and gained momentum after Galileo, early in the seventeenth century, used a telescope to obtain the crucial evidence that the Earth is indeed a planet orbiting the sun. In successive waves of astronomical discovery in the centuries that followed, astronomers found that just as the Earth is an ordinary planet, the Sun is an ordinary star (one of several hundred billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy) and the Milky Way itself is just an ordinary galaxy (one of several hundred billion in the visible Universe). They even suggested, at the end of the twentieth century, that the Universe itself may not be unique.

While all this was going on, biologists tried and failed to find any evidence for a special ‘life force’ that distinguishes living matter from non-living matter, concluding that life is just a rather complicated form of chemistry…
Even if you can get the facts of parshas Braishis to fit together with scientific data, how do you get the philosophy of parshas Braishis to fit together with this philosophy of science? Just asking…

7 comments:

  1. Isn't it amazing how the mites on this speck of dust have the power to change the entire universe? I think that many of even the greatest apikorsim believe that ultimately, our understanding of physics, of black holes, of the God Particle, of time and space, will enable us to destroy or change or maybe even create as many planets as we care to. We're more significant than we seem to be.

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  2. Akiva M1:10 PM

    How do you reconcile the philosophy of atheist scientists with B'raishis? You don't - and have no need to try.

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  3. Steven2:45 PM

    It seems to me that the philosophical conclusions to be drawn from these scientific findings are a matter of interpretation. Gribbin's suggestion that "we are not special" is "the most important thing that science has taught us" is one man's opinion, not necessarily scientific consensus.

    Here is a brief example of another way to think about these issues. Let's take the scientific notion that life is "just" a very complicated form of the same chemistry behind water and rocks. The fact that wonderful, complex, dynamic life can somehow arise from the same essential building blocks as inanimate dust is all the more mind-blowing and awe-inspiring. What science does for me is to shed light on how remarkable and beautifully designed a system the bri'ah is. My feelings about evolution are very similar.

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  4. >>>"the most important thing that science has taught us" is one man's opinion, not necessarily scientific consensus.

    Is it your view that the majority of scientists do not concur with Gribbin's opinion?

    >>>What science does for me is to shed light on how remarkable and beautifully designed a system the bri'ah is.

    Gribbin may agree with you that nature is awe inspiring and remarkable (Richard Dawkins, champion of atheism, has a whole book on this very subject) -- but that has nothing to do with the issue of whether man has a special place and special mission in the scheme of things. An awe inspiring mechanistic universe is still a mechanistic universe.

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  5. Steven3:19 PM

    >>>What science does for me is to shed light on how remarkable and beautifully designed a system the bri'ah is.

    > Gribbin may agree with you that nature is awe inspiring and remarkable (Richard Dawkins, champion of atheism, has a whole book on this very subject) -- but that has nothing to do with the issue of whether man has a special place and special mission in the scheme of things. An awe inspiring mechanistic universe is still a mechanistic universe.

    Whether mankind and Jews have a special place/mission is really interpretive, and in my opinion does not follow logically from the structure of the universe either way. Whether most scientists agree I don't know, but I suspect most Frum scientists would agree with me, despite their immersion and belief in scientific facts.

    In my humble opinion, Dawkins' inference of atheism is unfounded. Conversely I don't understand why Rav Avigdor Miller ZT"L could not tolerate evolution. I've heard tapes from Rav Miller praising the wondrous "machinery" of nature such as dandellions, fruits, etc., all revealing the greatness of the borei olam; yet he castigates evolution. Isn't a machine that is wondrous enough to refine its own designs over time and gradually spawn different/better machines even a greater testimony to the original Creator?

    Whether the bri'ah is a complicated system built out of non-evolving lego bricks, or a complicated system that incredibly evolved over time from a few basic fundamental rules and materials, either way is extraordinary -- only to me the second is a better, more robust, more brilliant, and more impressive design.

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  6. Bob Miller4:18 PM

    Lego bricks created from nothing? How are these fundamentally different from tiny particles and waves created from nothing?

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  7. כי אראה שמיך מעשה אצבעותיך ירח וכוכבים אשר כוננת מה אנוש כי תזכרנו

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