Torah & Science

Now we we'd begin b'ezrat Hashem maybe by returning a little bit to what we were talking about yesterday just trying to add one or two more again perspectives again to the general issue not so much the the particular mareh mekomos which occasioned our discussion. Although just parenthetically in terms of that you know the the two different understandings that we mentioned yesterday it's actually an important nafka mina l'dina between the two of them. Dehainu that if you accept the one that Rabbi Yehuda Halevi puts forward so then that means halacha l'maaseh when Chazal were talking about that it's muttar to kill kinam on Shabbos it only means those which are born from microscopic eggs. But let's say the kind of lice that we more commonly see, Chazal weren't talking about those. If you have some other mahalach whether it's the one we mentioned from Abarbanel or there's another mahalach then it can be that they were talking even about the larger variety. Anyway, but moving back to the to the broader issue. It's obviously untenable and certainly doesn't doesn't resonate as as truth to just be mevatel science. We live in a very technological society and a technological age so it doesn't I don't know to have a conversation with your friend on the cell phone and tell him how science is k'afra d'ara seems a little bit a little bit paradoxical to be euphemistic. Moreover the pshat is that that in halacha you do find that that science is given standing and is recognized. When the Rambam writes that dinei pikuach nefesh are in consultation with a רופא אומן באותו זמן ובאותו מקום so it means the best that medical science knows in in one's day. So there certainly doesn't seem to be any room or any any reason for an attitude of bitul. But m'idach gisa it it is very important to understand what scientific in quotation marks knowledge is and and what it isn't, to understand it epistemologically. And and what we're going to discuss is is are things that scientists certainly many scientists themselves say, others are those who are more involved with reflecting upon the discipline, philosophers of science these are all things that that that have been said and and said very cogently. Well one of the questions which comes up is how do you define a a scientific theory? What sort of what qualities or what criteria if you're putting forth a a scientific theory as to what causes an eclipse and or any other physical phenomena that that you're trying to understand or account for. So let's say that I have a shita as follows. I publish a paper in Scientific American if they accept it that there's a little guy behind a curtain and when he gets angry when he's in a bad mood so then that he shuts the lights off and and there's an eclipse. And that's my that's my scientific theory. So if you're if you're the editor of the journal so do do do you print the paper or or don't you print the paper? Is that a is that a scientific theory or what's the line between a scientific theory and mythology and the and the like? So the consensus seems to be that that to be a scientific theory it has to... to lend itself to falsification. Dehainu, you have to be able to bezos tivachen. It has to be a bezos tivachen. You have to, right, kayodua very famously, so when Einstein came out with his theory, he made certain predictions and said that if I'm right, so then you're going to see that A, B, and C will happen. And that so that was bezos tivachen and so he put he the there was a way of it was put up for refutation. And that's one of the one of the qualities which I think that there's a consensus that if something's going to be a scientific theory that it has to it has to meet that standard that it lends itself that it's open to falsification. And then less germane to to what we want to talk about, the assumption also is that the simpler the explanation for the physical phenomena the the more cogent and and the the better it is that that if if you can explain planetary motion with one or two yesodos and someone else can explain it with 18 yesodos that the one with the one who can explain it with one or two, so that's going to be that's that's going to be that meets the the the test more of being a scientific theory than the one which which is is more complicated. That having been said, the the leshonos are very meduyokim here that the standard is falsification as opposed to verification. Dehainu, you can't really ever verify any scientific theory. You can falsify, but you can't verify. Dehainu. The most you can say is that this explanation, this series of of identifying laws and forces in the universe accounts for what we see. And it it matches v'hoyu soamim, it it matches what what we see and what we observe. But you can't you can't you can't see the if if I tell you that there's a man standing behind the the the sliding wall there, so you can look and see whether he's there or not. You can't see a force. You can describe it and you can say that this force results in such and such and then you can refute it if it doesn't happen, but you can't verify it because there could be a different explanation which also accounts for the same phenomena that your explanation accounted for. Which is why scientists themselves say that they're not telling you what things are in the universe. Again, this is not this is not my Torah, it's not it's not it's not the Torah of people critiquing science. It's the it's the self-understanding, the accurate self-understanding of people who are involved in science is what they're doing is they're giving you a model for the universe. They're not telling you what is. What do you mean what is? You can you can see gravity? No, you can you can describe, you can try to identify a physical force that that accounts for the apple hitting you on the head. You can just move and sit somewhere else, but either way. But you can't you can't you can't see it, you can't you can't you can't verify it. You can falsify but you can't but you can't verify. So it's a model, it's a model which says that that I I I posit these forces and these laws and that accounts for the empirical reality that that we observe and that we experience. And in that sense, it's never truly verified when when when Newton had his understanding of the universe, so people held that it was the truth, the whole truth, and and nothing but the truth, and for a while it appeared that way until ultimately it was it was overturned. Also by definition the alternate explanations and models which are put forth are often unimaginable until some genius imagines them. So the fact that one lives at a time when certain axioms are subscribed to by the scientific community so ba'asher hu sham so no one can see an alternative. No one can see an alternative. But again, but we know from looking backwards into a history of science that it does happen that the day comes when you have someone who thinks out of the box and then he's able to see things differently and it's not necessarily true universally that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. So for thousands of years people couldn't imagine such a thing. Still not so pashut to imagine but whatever. So that's why what we were talking about yesterday in terms of not being nispa'el from kashyas, not getting too worked up, it wasn't reflecting any sense of disdain for science, but it's just a correct and realistic perspective. That lema'aseh nothing is ever verified, things are up for falsification, but they're never verified. So that we have a question that right now ba'asher hu sham in our state of knowledge we don't understand how the current opinion in the scientific world on issue A, B, or C, how that is compatible with things we find in the Chumash. Okay, so we don't. So it's not as if you're dealing with anything which is absolute truth. You're dealing with the current model of the universe and the understanding which flows from that current model of the universe. Go back in a time machine and go back and tell someone you don't have to go back too far. Matter of fact you don't have to go in a time machine, you can just talk to people my age or older and talk to them about cloning and things like that. I don't maybe I'm not a baki in science fiction, I don't know did they have it in science fiction? It's the things that science ends up with were unimaginable to science at earlier tkufos and earlier periods. So that you have questions and some of the questions we don't okay, if a person has an interesting mahalach, so מה טוב ומה נעים, it has value potentially. But a person doesn't know, a person doesn't know, it's not something to be nispa'el from. Just a reminder that a very good reminder that we're not omniscient, we need it's good to be reminded occasionally of that. The flip side of this sort of what's implicit all along as well, the other reason and perhaps even more compelling why there's no reason to get all worked up and worried and being nispoyel from these types of questions. Moshel ha-davar domeh. The moshel is a very inadequate moshel but maybe a little bit helpful nonetheless. Let's say you have, I don't know, you have a doctor who's been the family doctor for decades and has always, always given, been an excellent diagnostician, and always has known how to treat, what to prescribe, when not to prescribe. And then after dealing with this doctor for 20, 25 years, so he gives you a diagnosis that you think is, you don't understand, it doesn't make sense to you. Again, you have no real qualifications or background in medicine or medical science. So what are you going to do in all likelihood? You're going to say בטלה דעתי אצל דעתו. You're going to say, okay, so I don't understand, but I'm not going to throw away 25 years of confidence which is rooted in 25 years of his unerring diagnoses because with my kleina kop I don't necessarily understand what he's telling me today. You have someone, he's your ba'al eitzah. Again, the same moshel. The eitzos have always been right on target. Itachen, itachen that that's part or primarily what על ימין שהוא שמאל ועל שמאל שהוא ימין means also. It means so you think they're telling you right is left and left is right. But le-ma'aseh what they're telling you, when they're telling you right, so right is right and left is left, but even if it appears that way to you. So the other reason why not to be nispoyel is over the course of a few thousand years, Ribbono Shel Olam has earned the credibility. He's earned our trust and our faith is so much which is just so overwhelming and Torah is just so clear and compelling and obvious that we Baruch Hashem are given the ability and the opportunity to understand. Okay, so there's something we don't understand. There's something we don't understand. As the lashon which the Rebbe used to say, you don't die from a kasha. שטארבט נישט פון א קשיא. Okay. The other reason, so the sort of and just keeping perspective on what the nature of scientific knowledge is and le-havdil, keeping perspective on what Torah is, is why l'chora there's no room to be so nispoyel. Be-chlal, just moving away from that topic, moving away from the science and Torah topic, more broadly in, I think it's in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, Rav Shach has in his sefer Avi Ezri something he heard from Velvel beshem Reb Chaim, that Reb Chaim said that it's a mistake what people say that l'asid lavo everything's going to be crystal clear, we'll understand everything, everything will be yedi'ah not emunah. And Reb Chaim said if emunah's a mitzvah, so mitzvos are nohagos forever. Mitzvos are nohagos forever. There's always going to be a need for emunah. It's never going to be that everything is going to be yedi'ah. There's always going to be a need for emunah. And obviously this is a much bigger and deeper parsha. than the next comment will reflect, but the relationship or part of the relationship between yedia and emunah is this. We don't believe at all that there are people who do, but we don't, that there's anything irrational or arational or super-rational about belief in Hakadosh Baruch Hu and belief in the Torah. We believe and know again בכל לבבנו ובכל נפשנו that it's something which is very well-rooted and very well-founded, that there is yedia. On the other hand, we also believe that there are limits to what we know and to what we understand, and because of that the yedia always has to be a foundation for emunah, it has to be a basis for emunah. It's not blind faith in the sense that one blindly decides in whom to believe. It's not blind in if that's what the term means then that certainly doesn't describe what it is. It means based on the yedia, based based on yedia Hashem Elokim Emes, משה אמת ותורתו אמת, based on the yedia that we have in that, so then mimela, mimela, so then that translates into so even when we don't understand, so we have emunah. So that can be true, it can be true in this context, in the context in which we began, the question, the type of question with which we began, if a person is bitzarich iyun. It can be true in terms of understanding hashgacha pratis in history, hashgacha pratis in one's own life and in other people's lives. So of course we don't understand everything, but the point is that yedia is supposed to be a basis for emunah. And it can't be that it can't be that we understand everything, that we should understand everything would mean, let's say, in terms of hashgacha in the world, in terms of governance of the world. If we were to understand everything, so that would mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is exercising hashgacha pratis on our level, not on His level. משל למה הדבר דומה, if a two-year-old, if a one-year-old, if a three-month-old could understand everything what parents would only do for their infants, for their toddlers, for their little children what the kid can understand and the kid can appreciate. So the six-month-old doesn't really appreciate being stuck with needles and neither does the two-year-old. So the parents know, if the kid can't understand it, I'm not going to do it. So that's neglect, that's passive abuse, it's passive abuse. So there's always going to be things that we don't understand. Is it the things of these questions now? No, I don't think those are such big questions. I think those questions people are going to understand someday. But the point is that the attitude that you can't live with that one can't live with areas which are not illumined, that everything has to be bathing in the sunlight, that's not the way it is. There's always supposed to be a balance between yedia and emunah and based on yedia there's supposed to be emunah. I think this idea that I don't know if he meant both things were talking about, certainly the confidence in the truth of Torah, in the truth of Masorah at the beginning of the Rav's essay, Lonely Man of Faith, so he writes that he's never really been bothered by all these questions about the age of the world and what else he mentions there and evolution, all these other things, that doesn't really never really bothered him and he taka didn't expend too much mental energy, it wasn't where he applied his talents and energies. And I think part of that... Could be as that mind as well, but he certainly certainly has in mind just if a person knows, person knows from looking in Jewish history, a person knows from mesorah, a person knows from the experience of Talmud Torah the truth of Torah. So, okay. So, there's a question, okay. What's the question? Let's go right. Doesn't, I think that's, that's certainly what what his comment there reflects. There is this is the next point is is I think much more I think everything we discussed until now are devarim berurim and the next point I think that there is a lot of a lot of discussion and argument and controversy about. There is a famous book written by someone who in in history of science called I I think the title is Structure of Scientific Revolutions. The author I think his name is Kuhn. Again, this what he has to say is much debated and argued about and I obviously don't don't have an opinion, but his his mahalach is as follows: He he claims that that in the scientific revolutions that happen, so conventional sort of the conventional view is that before Copernicus came around, so there was a crisis in terms of the Ptolemaic geocentric understanding of the world, that there was too much that they couldn't account for, and that there was a crisis and and that was sort of the opening, the impetus and why the heliocentric Copernican theory found its place because it was able to explain and account for what the old one couldn't. And he says it's not true. He says they had everything farentfert. He says every time it was a kasha they had a shtickel teretz he says to farentfert. And if you go back he claims it wasn't true. He claims that the whole preference for the I think what that that his argument was that sometimes again, not only again can't it be again verifiable or verified truth, but that even the preference and even the changes often are more because of sort of the aesthetic intellectual appeal of one theory to scientists as opposed to the other one. Now this is is granted is generated, maybe it still does, I don't know, a lot of a lot of controversy whether that's really true, is it true historically what he's claiming, is it really true? I mean, if what he says is true so it just sort of magnifies and amplifies everything what we're talking about, but you can take that or or leave it. Everything else is lichora independent of that. Okay, maybe next week bli neder we'll resume chol hamoed.