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SecularFrummy: This is old (I wasn’t around last night) but sorry- It was really late at night and I messed up reading :). I actually had a whole post that had something about how bacteria reproduce with binary fission (I didn’t bring up conjugation) but for some reason it never ended up posted- I probably just forgot about it :).
Sorry that I don’t mention who it is (I’m on a new page now), but someone had a great point when he/she talked about WHY schools don’t teach evolution. The concepts of evolution aren’t kefiradik- especially the stuff we’ve all been discussing, like natural selection, that’s all able to be empirically proven and applied now. Anything prehistoric could even be able to be taught just as applying the concepts you learn to a different (even hypothetical, if you so choose) scenario. The question is- why so scared to teach it? If you don’t want questions, why not? If you haven’t got the answers, I’d say that’s a bigger problem. If you do have answers, then what are you afraid of?
SecularFrummy: This is old (I wasn’t around last night) but sorry- It was really late at night and I messed up reading :). I actually had a whole post that had something about how bacteria reproduce with binary fission (I didn’t bring up conjugation) but for some reason it never ended up posted- I probably just forgot about it :).
Sorry that I don’t mention who it is (I’m on a new page now), but someone had a great point when he/she talked about WHY schools don’t teach evolution. The concepts of evolution aren’t kefiradik- especially the stuff we’ve all been discussing, like natural selection, that’s all able to be empirically proven and applied now. Anything prehistoric could even be able to be taught just as applying the concepts you learn to a different (even hypothetical, if you so choose) scenario. The question is- why so scared to teach it? If you don’t want questions, why not? If you haven’t got the answers, I’d say that’s a bigger problem. If you do have answers, then what are you afraid of?
writersoul- I’m not sure if the question you are asking is directed at me (I have studied and am a proponent of teaching evolution), but I will be glad to attempt to answer it.
The reason frum Jews do not teach evolution is because it is a concept that is not associated with religion. People for thousands of years (especially in Europe and other places that significant portions of the Jewish population resided) did not have a scientific theory as to how the world developed into what it looks like today.
Along comes Darwin and the like, and propose an idea that is new. Most of these ideas were not very compatible with the Torah based on the way it was interpreted by the Rabbonim until then. (Nowadays we have plenty of “new” commentaries that are giving alternatives to the way we interpret the Chumash.) There was little empirical evidence in Darwin’s time, he was mainly speculating (as is evidence of his famous “I think..” paper) and it took the next hundred or so years to back up his claims with experimental data.
Because at the time the idea was introduced into the mainstream there was lack of interpretation of the Torah in a way that coincides with evolution, it was thrown out by the Rabbis and designated as kefira.
I’m not sure as to why we don’t want questions. Answering questions can only strengthen our emunah, not take away from it.
@benignuman Your claim about being able to be a good medical doctor or biologist without accepting evolution is irrelevant. First of all, I challenge you to find someone who has some valid credentials (i.e. a PhD in biology as opposed to access to a blog) who rejects evolution. You don’t have to understand evolution to be a medical doctor, just as a mechanic does not have to understand quantum physics in order to fix a car. As far as “micro-evolution” and “macro-evolution”, you are mistaken. Macro-evolution IS micro-evolution, just with more time. The evidence for macro-evolution is overwhelming, and not unproven a you say.
@frumscientists I’m not sure how you call yourself a scientist without knowing that the things you mentioned that people don’t understand are a lot more understood than you think. Just because a layman does not understand something does not mean it is false. I could give you an in-depth lesson in biology, and demonstrate how these things are more supported than you think. The fact that you use the term “neo-darwinism” makes me again assume that you have very little knowledge of science. If I am wrong then please correct me, but you have no proper credentials, do you? And by credentials I don’t mean following debates on a blog, I mean something that you can show that would, for instance, make the scientific community take you seriously. “Neo-darwinism” makes you sound like a conspiracy nut, and if you used that around scientists you would be laughed at.
I didnt have time to read through all the posts here. I learned in high school that the torah starts with a “beis” or “bet”. If you look at the shape of the “beis” or “bet” it is 3 sides of a square and one side is open. My teacher had told us that we dont know what happened before bereishis and we cannot learn about what happened before bereishis. We start from the “beis” or “bet” and keep going from there.
SecularFrummy,
You wrote: “First of all we consider 3000 years ago a long time ago. 1 million years is kind of incomprehensible.”
Large numbers are not incomprehensible. We might not be able to imagine living that long in practical terms but numbers are easy and in numbers 1 million is that difficult to deal with. Finally when discussing Neo-Darwinian evolution what counts is generations not years (1 year for fruit flies equals at least 1,300 years for humans).
“Second of all 2 million years ago according to evolutionists would not be were the common ancestor of humans and modern great apes would be. That would be more like 7 million years ago. 2 million years ago would be basically human just more similar to the common ancestor then we are.”
Anatomically (as opposed to cognitively) modern humans are estimated to have evolved 200,000 years ago. The earliest species within the genus Homo are estimated at 2.3 million years. That gives you a little more than 2.1 million years to get from ape (pre-homo) to human.
Chimps and humans are estimated to have had a common ancestor 4-6 million years ago, but that doesn’t mean that after chimps broke off the human ancestor was anything more than an ape.
benignuman- I didn’t write those things.
And even after reading your responses to those quotes, I do not understand your point, no offense.
mgntgt,
Go back and re-read my post about defining terms in discussing evolution (it should be on the first page). My point was in response to oft made claim that “all of biology is based on evolution.” One need not describe to Neo-Darwinian evolution (or even common descent) to be a good doctor or a biologist.
There are biologists (i.e. Phd in biology or closely related fields) that do not subscribe to the Neo-Darwinian theory of evolution. A small sample:
Dean Kenyon
Michael Behe
John A. Davison
Thomas Guilliams
James Shapiro
Raymond Bohlin
Some of the above are creationists, some support intelligent design, and some support alternative theories of evolution.
As explained above, students are taught biology within a Neo-Darwinian paradigm but that doesn’t mean that the Neo-Darwinian paradigm is necessary to learn, research and apply biology.
You wrote: “As far as “micro-evolution” and “macro-evolution”, you are mistaken. Macro-evolution IS micro-evolution, just with more time. The evidence for macro-evolution is overwhelming, and not unproven a you say.”
I suspect you are misunderstanding my terms. I am discussing macro and micro evolution by Neo-Darwinian mechanisms. Obviously those who subscribe to the Neo-Darwinian explanation for bio-diversity believe that micro and macro are the same just with more time. But that is just a conclusion.
The vast bulk of the evidence they have is for micro-evolution and common descent, not macro-evolution. They are making an inductive leap that is not necessarily warranted and for which there is counter-evidence that renders it it implausible.
To the opening poster: What is the difference, if any, between a yeshivisha school and a yeshiva?
If you want to believe your grandfather was a monkey, thats your tough noogies! I will stick to the mayseh with Reb Yaakov Kaminetzky on the plane.
Secular Frummy,
I apologize. I mixed you up with Lakewood Fellow. To understand my point you would probably have to go back and read my back and forth with him.
Jewish Tradition and the Challenge of Darwinism (ed. Cantor and Swetlitz) offers a thorough synopsis of rabbinic opinion on the subject of Darwinian evolution throughot the years.
I found it fascinating that even Reform rabbis denounced evolution. Isaac Mayer Wise (far more theologically traditional than today’s Reform rabbis) authored “The Cosmic G-d,” which argued for the lack of concrete scientific evidence for evolution and claimed that a belief that human life stems from lower life forms is anathema to the Torah’s humanism. The distinction between human capability for reason and spiritual yearning and animal existence was blurred by Darwin, argued Wise, and this mode of thinking was defneded by other Reform rabbis.
One shita I found very compelling was that of Hakham Sabato Morais, zt”l. Morais was the minister of K.K. Mikveh Israel (Orthodox) in Philadelphia and one of the most articulate Jewish clerics of his time. He noted, like Wise, that Darwinism not only lacked adequate empirical evidence, but also that evolution denied the belief that G-d created the world ex nihilo, and thus, he condemned the associations between materialism, atheism, and Darwinism seen among many scientists.
Another Sephardic hakham, Abraham DeSola, minister of Shearith Israel in Montreal, denounced evolution from a broader scientific basis.
Fast forward 150 years later, I don’t think the burden of proof has shifted away from the evolutionists. There’s still a reason why Darwinism is only a theory.
rebdoniel: As I believe I mentioned earlier (or if I didn’t I’ll just mention it here) a scientific theory is not what you or I would call a theory- that would be a hypothesis. A scientific theory is more akin to what we would call an empirically proven and scientifically accepted dogma. It can be disproven upon the accumulation of significant data against it, but it’s not just another theory- it’s been scientifically tested.
See: theory of relativity, atomic theory, cell theory. Are these considered by you to be just as non-credible as evolutionary theory? Why not? They’re both theories…
And scientists still can’t really explain the Big Bang. So I don’t think that the inyan of yesh mi’ayin is really an issue, because where did stuff come from in the first place?
Plus, were they contesting Darwin’s theory of evolution bichlal? As in, no microevolution? Or did they only have an issue with the idea of our world as we know if having evolved? Because we’ve established here that microevolution is very real.
On the subject of micro-evolution v. macro-evolution and why the former doesn’t compel the latter, the following is a quote from Professor James Tour, a prominent organic chemist:
Scientific theories do have a great deal of evidence behind them, but there is still no iron-clad, smoking gun evidence that man came from monkeys. The lashon of Bereshit even suggests a form of evolution- man is created from the dust of the earth, a lower form of existence. But, Darwinism and all its social and ideological imnplications, is not a law, not is it ironclad.
writersoul,
May I recommend the following book:
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
I do not mean to be offensive so please take this the right way. Your description of a “scientific theory” is simplistic. It doesn’t take into account the vast differences between scientific fields (in terms of veritability) or scientific intertia (or dogmatism). Read Kuhn, I suspect it will change the way you think about science.
benignuman: of course it’s hard to fathom- it’s mindboggling to fathom, as our brains simply do not have enough scope or context to picture billions of years of evolution. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
If you show me a later quote from the same place that gives scientific reasons why one doesn’t compel the other, then ok. But saying that the problem is just that we can’t comprehend it when we think about it in real time doesn’t mean that it can’t be real.
Can you picture what Hashem is like?
Do you think that means He’s not real?
Lehavdil elef alfei ALFEI havdalos, of course, but just by being a Jew you know that just because we can’t picture something we can’t just throw it in the bin.
so maybe this is a stupid question, and maybe its even been answered somewhere in these 115+ posts, ut why would R’ Ahron Schechter tell BYA to cancel the biology regent, and then still allow the test to be given in Chaim Berlin? (and yes, I know for a fact that the biology regent was given this year in Chaim Berlin)
benignuman: Of course the description I gave of a scientific theory is vague and not particularly good- I just wanted to make the point that theory in everyday parlance is a hypothesis in science-speak- a scientific theory has a lot more backbone behind it.
That’s not to say I wouldn’t like your book :)- just that I get where you’re coming from and no, I don’t think I win the prize for the most concise and correct scientific definition.
rebdoniel: No it is not a law.
According to NASA.gov, a theory is “an explanation for why certain laws and facts exist that can be tested to determine its
accuracy.”
A law is “a logical relationship between two or more things that is based on a variety of facts and proven
hypothesis. It is often a mathematical statement of how two or more quantities relate to each other.”
direct experiment or observation. A proven hypothesis can be expressed as a law or a theory. A
disproven hypothesis can sometimes be re-tested and found correct as measurements improve.”
Okay. I can stop trying unsuccessfully to explain it. My sole point was that in science the word “theory” doesn’t mean “oh, we thought it happens to sound cool so we’ll just put it in all the textbooks an dhope nobody’s noticed it doesn’t make sense.”
writersoul,
You misunderstood the paragraph. He isn’t saying “I believe that Neo-Darwinian mechanisms account for macroevolution, I just can’t fathom it in practical terms.” He is saying that scientifically speaking the multiple mutations that would have to happen in concert for macroevolution to occur (as opposed to micro which can happen with one or two point [at most] mutations), is so unlikely as to require a separate explanation or at least some demonstration of its occurrence.
and
“I simply do not understand, chemically, how macroevolution could have happened.”
I should point out again, that evolution is not a matter of years but a matter of generations. Furthermore, because we have fossils we can discuss evolution as between point A and point B. We don’t have to be swept away by the grand scheme of life on Earth.
Frankly, I think the evidence is pretty strong that Natural Selection acting on random mutation (aka the Neo-Darwinian synthesis) is not sufficient to account for the complexity of life on Earth or the fossil record. I suspect the reason it still stands as the dominant theory is not because of its strength but because it has no serious competitors.
Why would, after Noach, all the marsupials migrate to Australia? All penguins migrate to the Antarctica continent? Wouldn’t you see equal distribution of all sorts of animals in all areas of the world if they all emerged from the teivah at the same time?
Its obvious simply based of geographic distribution that evolution has taken place.
Secular Frummy,
I have not been disputing that a animals have evolved. The issue is by what mechanism have they evolved. I don’t think that Neo-Darwinian mechanisms are capable of achieving the changes we see in the fossil record or in the diversity of life around us.
Agav, I think the conventional theory is that Marsupials migrated to Australia, not that they arose in Australia. The issue is only why they thrived in Australia and died out everywhere else.
benignuman- You agree that animals have evolved. How did this evolution come about? What mechanism has been used?
SecularFrummy,
I don’t really know the answer to that question. There have been various hypotheses bandied about but a lot of work needs to be done to refine and test them. Here are some of the ideas I have read/heard about.
The Self Organization Hypothesis of Stuart Kauffman
The Front-Loaded Hypothesis advocated in the book The Design Matrix
The Natural Genetic Engineering Theory of James A. Shapiro
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