Was Einstein Wrong? “God Plays Dice”

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Was Einstein Wrong? “God Plays Dice”

Evolution, contrary to the accepted view, is excellent evidence for the existence of a Creator. Therefore, atheists in particular ought to try to refute it, and creationists ought to search carefully for evidence of its existence. An excerpt from the book by Dr. Michael Abraham, “God Plays Dice”

Evolution is a process that has a direction, a tendency. From inanimate, primordial matter, devoid of any properties, created in the Big Bang, we arrive at living, complex creatures that also appear purposeful. Stephen Jay Gould, who points to this fundamental difficulty, offers an explanation by means of the drunkard analogy.

What Will Happen to the Drunkard?

The drunkard begins to zigzag, at one moment toward the wall and at another toward the sidewalk, that is, in a random direction. But in the end, if we give him enough time, we will no doubt find him sprawled in the gutter. The wall, of course, represents the constraints of natural selection, and the randomness in choosing sides is the emergence of mutations. The interplay between these two creates the result that is predictable in advance.

First, the main problem is that the wall along which the drunkard is moving is made of paper. Moreover, behind that wall there is an abyss from which no one returns. Any movement in the evolutionarily nonviable direction (that is, toward the wall) leads to a dead end in the process, that is, to the extinction of the creature or of its evolutionary descendants (the drunkard’s fall into the abyss behind the wall, in the analogy).

Evolution: a process with a direction (Illustration: Shutterstock)

The Environment Determines

Second, even if we ignore the fact that the wall is made of paper and use Gould’s absurd model, the analogy is still problematic. After all, the fact that despite the randomness of the process it has a preordained result is derived from the structure of the environment in which this process takes place. An environment in which there is a gutter on one side and a rigid wall on the other is what dictates the final outcome of the process.

To examine whether this process is indeed random, we must ask: who created this structure? Who built a sidewalk along which there is a wall on one side and a gutter on the other, right at the exit from the pub?

We should remember that in the analogue, this is not a gutter but a tub of ice cream. The product of the “blind” evolutionary process is life, that is, a positive and unique result, not rolling around in the gutter.

What Does All This Have to Do with God?

The necessary conclusion from the analysis we have made is that if we indeed take into account the fact that the wall is made of paper and that there is an abyss behind it, the result is that the drunkard simply will not reach the gutter. And in the analogue, the evolutionary process of a series of jumps between the islands of the “dead” ocean, without ever falling between them, is probabilistically impossible, and therefore it probably did not occur in this way.

Does This Strengthen or Weaken Faith?

Many believe that the probabilistic argument attacks the theory of evolution itself, since according to this description it is an utterly improbable process, and therefore the theory is scientifically untenable. That is indeed what the fundamentalist creationists claim.

The fundamentalist creationist belief that evolution did not occur at all, and likewise the atheistic belief in the blindness of this successful evolutionary process—both are dogmatic and irrational beliefs. What we see here is that the creationist denies facts, and the neo-Darwinist believes in miracles. Such an argument, presented in the name of rationality and opposition to mysticism, is an intellectual sleight of hand that does not particularly impress me.

“God Plays Dice,” by Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham, was published by Yedioth Sefarim.

Source (ynet): http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4086098,00.html