Q&A: The Blind Watchmaker
The Blind Watchmaker
Question
Is the Rabbi familiar with a critique like this? https://7minim.wordpress.com/2017/07/16/rattt/
Answer
I’m not familiar with it. Moshe Rat is a student of mine, and a significant portion of what he says is based on arguments of mine. True, I also didn’t like the comparison he makes between the various possibilities and the legitimacy he grants to different mysticisms. He took that too far. But in my opinion the critique also gets carried away a bit too much.
Perhaps when I have time I’ll write something of my own about the book. In my view it is much more successful than what is described here. There are quite a few things he presents in a very simple and elegant way, but it’s true that he skims over some problems and subtleties far too easily (that’s the price of the simplicity he was aiming for, and he achieved it quite well. The critiques of my books go in the opposite direction—that I make things too heavy, overly meticulous, and tiresome).