Q&A: Science and Faith
Science and Faith
Question
I’m interested in science and faith. I thought I’d raise a few points on the subject of faith that might interest you:
1) Suppose scientists in the future develop a human-like robot. And the robot is so similar to a human being that we would not be able to distinguish it from a real person (let us assume it is even made of organic material and contains a replication mechanism, like a living creature). Without a doubt such a robot would be proof of extensive design. If so, why not the human being himself, who is far more complex and even possesses free will, which such a robot does not have?
2) If the world developed through a natural process, then a car too could come into being in a closed room. How? Because if man gradually developed from a bacterium (as the theory of evolution claims), then if we were to close off an enormous room (even the size of the Earth), the bacterium inside it could gradually develop into a human, who in turn would create a car = a car developed in a closed room. But we know that a car cannot come into being in a closed room.
3) Regarding order in fossils—vehicles too can be arranged hierarchically. For example: car–>jeep–>truck. But that does not prove that they evolved from one another. One could argue against this that vehicles do not reproduce and do not occasionally change like living creatures. But even if they did reproduce or occasionally change, without a doubt people would conclude that the vehicles were designed and did not evolve from one another.
Regarding the problems with evolution in general—you can find them in this interesting article:
http://www.haemet.net/articles/creation/evolution/truth_about_evolution.htm
Have a pleasant day..
Answer
Hello.
1. Sounds reasonable. That is one possible formulation of the physico-theological proof. See the third and fourth notebooks on my site.
2. This is nonsense, of course. For there to be an evolutionary process, mutations and hereditary processes are required. That does not exist in cars and rooms as such.
3. Again, you are ignoring data that clearly show that evolution exists. See my book God Plays Dice.
I skimmed the link you sent, and it contains quite a few errors, and a great many unnecessary arguments stated very forcefully without any real backing.
In general, I would say that it is neither right nor reasonable to attack evolution in order to validate faith. If evolution is a good scientific theory, then it should be accepted. If not, then it should be attacked scientifically, regardless of faith. In any case, scientific knowledge is needed for that. In my book I make a point of showing that even if one adopts evolution entirely, it has no bearing whatsoever on faith. If anything, it only strengthens it.
Sabbath peace
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Questioner:
Thank you for your answer, Dr. Abraham.
Regarding 1. This is definitely a proof by negation for the existence of a designer of the world.
2. I’m not speaking דווקא about an evolutionary process but about an ordinary car. After all, according to evolution the common ancestor of man was bacterium-like. Since according to evolution a bacterium gradually developed into a human, and since the human in turn created a car—then according to evolution a car developed through a chain of natural processes whose beginning was a bacterium.
3. I read your book quite a long time ago (a few years back). If I remember correctly, you spoke about a process of the formation of new species. But even strict creationists accept that. What they do not accept is the formation of new families of creatures. For example, something like a transition from dog to cat, or ape to human. What we do see in nature is new species of flies or dogs or bacteria. But the bacterium, dog, and fly remained a bacterium, dog, and fly, and did not develop into something else. And therefore this is not evolution. In fact, even supporters of evolution admit that a transition of the above type requires millions of years and therefore cannot be tested. They argue that over millions of years, small changes can accumulate into large changes. However, there is a serious problem here: let us assume we had a car with the traits of a living creature; that is, with the ability to reproduce and occasionally pass on mistakes to its offspring cars. Can one believe that over millions of years that car could eventually turn into an airplane? The answer is of course no, because the transition from car to airplane requires coordinated changes all at once. An airplane engine, for example, is very different from a car engine. Therefore, one cannot gradually move from a car-suited engine to an airplane-suited one. And if such a transition is not possible, why should it be possible in the living world?
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Rabbi:
2. I didn’t understand. How does all this happen without heredity? And really, how are you comparing a process with heredity to a process without heredity? When a human creates a car, that is not a process of heredity. It seems to me like mere wordplay.
3. Many have already discussed this as well. There are intermediate stages, and there are various models that show possible development without coordinated leaps. But as I said, I have no interest in entering into a defense or attack on evolution, because this is an internal scientific matter. It has no theological significance.
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Questioner:
Regarding 2. Imagine that the universe were surrounded by four enormous walls. That is, a kind of giant room that at the beginning contained basically nothing, or some primordial matter. Today, after about 13.7 billion years, there are cars and airplanes inside it. That is, in principle one can claim that in a closed room a car was created by some chain of processes.
3. Regarding the claim of intermediate stages: vehicles too can be arranged hierarchically. For example: motorcycle, car, truck. Does that mean that the car is the intermediate stage between the motorcycle and the truck? Does that indicate development? The answer is of course no (even if vehicles replicated themselves or contained DNA like a living creature). Therefore intermediate stages also do not prove development. Another problem is that many intermediate stages do not appear in the correct evolutionary order. For example: according to evolution, fish gradually developed into tetrapods (four-legged creatures). The problem is that the first tetrapod fossil appears tens of millions of years before the intermediate stage between fish and tetrapods themselves!:
http://www.livescience.com/6004-legged-creature-footprints-force-evolution-rethink.html
That is, evolution predicts a certain order, which if we represent it in numbers goes like this: 1,2,3. Instead, we find 1,3,2. In that case, would we claim that the creatures did not evolve from one another?
As for the models—you may be talking about genetic algorithms. But those algorithms have a predefined goal, and every correct step is preserved and carried forward. That is not the case in nature.
Best regards…
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Rabbi:
2. I still do not understand a word of this argument.
3. We know that there is evolution and there is heredity, so there is no basis for comparing this to cars. This is not merely an ordering correlation. True, in a genealogical tree there is a good deal of speculation, but these algorithms have better justifications than mere visual order. This is a fairly complicated mathematical field, and this is not the place.
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Questioner:
Regarding 2. I’ll formulate it this way: according to the atheist position, the entire world was formed through a chain of natural processes. Since cars also exist in our world, one can therefore claim that a car was formed through a chain of natural processes.
3. I’d be glad to see factual support for the claim that “there is evolution.” As stated—variation such as a change in fur color, change in height and weight, etc., do not constitute evidence for evolution. Only change at the family level can serve as evidence for that, except that a change on that scale, as stated, requires millions of years, and therefore is not observable even according to evolution itself. The analogy to cars is a good one, assuming we include in it traits such as heredity and occasional change. That is, we could ask the following question: assuming we had a car capable of producing offspring, with a mechanism that causes occasional changes—could this car eventually turn into something different, like an airplane? According to evolution the answer is yes. Because in that case the car fulfills the rules required for evolution (heredity + mutations). Do you also think so?
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Rabbi:
Regarding 2, see the comments. This is just wordplay in my opinion.
Regarding 3, it would be best to ask people who work on evolution. As I said, I don’t see at all why it matters on the theological plane whether evolution can create new species or not. On the principled level, I see no reason in the world why new species could not come into being by way of evolution. It is not essentially different from the formation of change within a species. Both this and that are genetic changes in the protein chain. Such changes happen throughout evolution, so what is the problem with new species being formed? But as I said, this really does not seem important to me. It is a scientific question, and the ones who should deal with it are scientists in that field. It has no implications for anything beyond science.
Discussion on Answer
I knew the song, but only now did I look at the lyrics. Beautiful.
And I still don’t understand the argument.
I think his argument is that just as spider webs are a natural product that, according to scientists, came about randomly in the world, so too one could claim regarding cars and airplanes that they are natural products that came about randomly. But it is obvious to everyone that cars and airplanes are not a random product, and from here comes a contradiction.
That’s how I understood it, and about that I wrote that it is wordplay. Cars were created by human beings who came about evolutionarily. What does the car add to the question of whether it is plausible that human beings came about randomly?
Hi, here too, Dr. Abraham. In my opinion it does matter on the theological plane whether evolution can turn an ape into a human or a dog into a cat. For evolution is, in essence, a natural explanation for the diversity of living things and plant life. So if we have a gradual natural explanation for the formation of man, why should we accept the non-natural explanation, namely an intelligent one? You touched on a very important point, which is actually the essence of the debate between creationists and supporters of evolution. Supporters of evolution hold that small changes over time accumulate into large changes. Opponents of evolution argue that such a transition requires jumps that are too large in genetic space, and therefore cannot occur through the accumulation of small changes. An analogy I already raised is, as stated, a car. A car can change its color, accumulate mud and dirt (small changes). But such changes will never turn it into an airplane or a space shuttle (large changes). That is, there is an essential distinction between small changes and large ones. It should be noted that in this case it does not even matter whether the car has heredity and mutations. Because the question here is whether small changes will accumulate into giant changes. And the answer to that is no—whether we are talking about a self-replicating car or not.
Hello.
I am very well aware of the debates between creationists and neo-Darwinians. I wrote a book about this called God Plays Dice, and there I dealt with all of it.
And above all I clarified there very well why both sides are mistaken and none of this has any theological implication. You can also read a summary in an article here on the site:
As for the car, I’ve already said it again and again, and I won’t repeat it. Either I failed to understand something very basic (and I still don’t understand), or this is meaningless wordplay.
So I went over the article (interesting). Indeed, one can argue that even if evolution occurred, it still requires design—just as a car manufactured gradually in an automated factory points to design. My problem is that the scientific evidence itself does not support evolution. Therefore there is no need to accept it. I actually am interested in the scientific debate over evolution versus creationism/intelligent design, since I’ve studied it quite a bit, and I have no problem discussing it at any level. In your article you described the change undergone by the finches in the Galápagos as an evolutionary process. But here too, the finches remained finches and did not develop into something that is not a finch. From this it follows that there is no evidence for evolution here. As for the car—in fact I was now referring to evolution on a geological scale, and to the claim that a collection of small changes accumulates into large changes. I demonstrated why this claim is incorrect. If I remember correctly, you argued that there is no theoretical barrier that would prevent small changes from accumulating into large changes. So I showed why there is such a barrier. And it is summed up by “irreducible complexity.”
Regarding 2, I think Meir Ariel’s song “What’s New in Science” might perhaps clarify the point:
Lyrics:
http://shironet.mako.co.il/artist?type=lyrics&lang=1&prfid=605&wrkid=2056