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One shortcoming of those who produce plausible scientific interpretation to events described in the Bible is that they will not re-evaluate their premises should their theories be proven wrong. According to Popper, a theory can be labelled scientific if it is refutable. Mainstream science holds every theory as reputable in principle and does not shy away from discarding failed theories and adopting new, more successful ones. One must ask what will Prof. Aviezer’s and Dr. Schroeder’s attitude be should new scientific research prove their premises wrong? What if new research shows that the universe is 40 billion years old or perhaps only 10 billion years old? Will they say, oh well… in that case the Torah must be wrong? (after all, they have shown how nicely it correlates with the Big Bang taking place 15 billon years ago). I suspect not. To a religious person, religion is not refutable. A religious person’s attitude is that when science appears to confirm certain religious beliefs, then well and good. But, when science appears to contradict religious beliefs then their answer would be that we don’t ‘understand’ it all.
The fundamental question is: Is there any conceivable scientific discovery that will convince a religious person to abandon his/her religious beliefs? If the answer is none, then one is not justified in using science to corroborate religious beliefs. |
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לבקשתו של פרופ' אביעזר אני מביא את תשובתו לשלמה כפי שנשלחה אלי. Nathan Aviezer replying to Shlomo. As will become clear,
Shlomo has not the slightest idea of what I wrote in my book, but this does not prevent him from making fun of me by asking as follows: "One must ask what will be the attitude of Professor Aviezer ... should new research prove ... that the universe is 40 billion years old or perhaps only 10 billion years old? After all, [he] has shown how nicely it [Genesis] correlates with the Big Bang taking place 15 billion years ago." From these words of Shlomo, the reader would never imagine that in my book, I never - repeat, NEVER - claimed that the text of Genesis supports or requires a 15-billion-year-old universe. In fact, I wrote precisely the opposite. See pages 1 and 2 of my book (English version, "In the Beginning"). Shlomo also asks - and answers for me (Shlomo loves to give my answers for me!): "When science appears to contradict religious belief, what then? Their [Aviezer's] answer would be that we don't 'understand' it all." The truth is that my answer is very different. My answer is to adopt the position of Maimonides, who dealt with precisely this question, back in the 12th century, in his "Guide for the Perplexed" (Part II, Chapter 25). I leave it to Shlomo - and other interested readers - as a homework problem (we professors love to give homework problems!) to read Maimonides' answer and thereby learn something about the true Jewish approach to Torah-and-science. |
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At first let me apologise to Prof. Aviezer for attributing to his book comments that are relevant only to Dr. Schroeder’s book. I’m sorry. I did actually read Prof. Aviezer’s book, but that was way back in 1995. At no stage did I intend to “make fun” of anyone. I asked what I deemed to be a legitimate question. All I wanted was friendly discussion but that’s not to be.
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