1. I didn’t understand what you meant by: “static nature” that does not produce natural selection. I’d be happy for an explanation, if it’s not too much trouble amid all your other work.
2. If we take your instructive analogy about the monkeys who type out a Shakespeare sonnet under their feet, because there are constraints there that freeze the “correct” letters in place—
in evolution, what freezes the letters is natural selection, not only mutations or genetics, and selection is logical (unless I completely misunderstood point 1).
Do you think natural selection doesn’t erode the argument even a little?

The question is who determined natural selection.
The concept of natural selection is not a logical principle,
but the result of a law that someone legislated.

Moish,
natural selection is pure logic. The fitter survives. But evolution is not only natural selection. That is only one component within it.

Almog,
1. A pile of stones does not produce natural selection, except in a very banal sense. And under other laws of nature it would not produce natural selection at all. Quite simply, nothing would change.
2. As I explained here and also in the booklet, without the laws of nature there is no evolution. The fact that within the whole picture there is also a logical-tautological component (= natural selection), in addition to all the other scientific components, changes nothing.

As for inheritance and genetics, I agree that they point with considerable force to an intelligent hand. As for natural selection, the matter still isn’t clear to me.
I’ll try to present it formally:
A human being is complex to degree X, and therefore it is probable to degree X that he has a designer.
Now we understand that the design was carried out by three mechanisms: mutations, inheritance, and natural selection.
Each one gets the credit for its role — x/3.
Now I see that one of the mechanisms is logical. True, it needs the other two mechanisms in order to operate, but once they exist, it is fundamentally logical, so I am left (supposedly) with a complexity level of 2/3X, and the probability of a designer’s existence drops to 2/3X.
On what point does the doctor disagree?
Now a friend gave me a nice analogy:
A drunk walks on a very narrow path one hundred meters long, with a deep abyss on both sides.
The chance that he reaches the finish line is negligible.
Now it turns out that on this particular course the chance is actually reasonable. I get curious to see what causes the chance to rise so drastically, and I see that there is a wall on both sides of the path.
The wall on the right is an ordinary wall, and the wall on the left is there by logical necessity.
Before I came close to the path, I thought the complexity of the process was X, and therefore the probability of an intelligent agent who created the walls was X.
After coming closer, I see that the left wall is there by logical necessity.
Even though the left wall (the logical one) is worthless without the right one, still one cannot ignore its part in the drunk’s success; it has a fifty-percent partnership, and therefore the engineer gets only half the credit (for the right wall), even though without the engineer’s wall the left wall would be worth nothing.
The analogy is clear. Does the doctor not see a difference?
Perhaps the doctor thinks that even without natural selection the argument is strong, but that is not my question. My question is about the place of natural selection in the proof, and its effect on the argument (even if it does not refute the argument), because you wrote: “The fact that within the whole picture there is also a logical-tautological component (= natural selection), in addition to all the other scientific components, changes nothing,” and I do not understand how it does not change the strength, even if not the conclusion.

Almog, this discussion is going nowhere. It has no real significance, and you are also mistaken in both your argument and your analogy.

You could add that there is also mathematics in the picture (after all, some laws of nature have a mathematical character, and some of the inferences made in scientific fields are only logical-mathematical derivations of consequences from the basic laws), and therefore the strength of the proof drops even further (now it is already below zero). That is nonsense, of course. I write these things in Hebrew, and since I am Israeli that is a tautology, so therefore the proof for God’s existence has been weakened. And so too regarding the page numbering in Darwin’s book.

When making a comparison, it is very important to place the two alternatives you are comparing side by side, and define them well. The two alternatives are: 1. Life arose through the laws of biology alone. 2. Life arose through the laws of biology together with natural selection.
Now you can immediately see why your comparison is mistaken. The laws of biology are a special creation, and without them evolution would not have occurred. That is argument 1 for God’s existence. Now you say that another component is added to the picture—natural selection—which is logical. So what? Does that make the laws of biology more understandable and simpler? It only adds another component to the picture, and that component indeed does not change the proof (and that is argument 2). But adding it certainly does not reduce its force.

I suggest ending this unnecessary discussion here. There is no point in discussing whether this or that component increases or decreases the force of the proof. What matters is the bottom line: is there an argument or not (that is, are the laws of inheritance and biology sufficiently special or not).

All right, although I still didn’t understand why the analogy is mistaken.
On a related matter, do you think that within the given laws, the probability that evolution (after a protein chain) reaches complex things is high?
From your book it sounds like even within the laws you are very doubtful about that. I’m interested in what that is based on.

That is a somewhat tricky question, and in my opinion no one can answer it, apart from pointing to the fact that it did indeed happen and therefore it is possible. But that is begging the question, since creationists will say it is the finger of God (that is, it did not really happen randomly), and neo-Darwinians will say that it is indeed possible. Both interpretations are possible for the same facts, and I do not think there is a way to decide.
On the face of it, it seems that a huge number of trials would be required for this to be plausible, and there are calculations showing that such a number could not really have existed. But, as I said, that is only a reason for doubt, and therefore neither the creationists nor the neo-Darwinians can speak here with confidence (which of course does not stop either side).
In the book I presented all this only as a backdrop to show how special the laws must be for this to happen. And from this it follows that even if it is possible within the laws (that is, that they are so special that they turn these impossible processes into plausible ones), then all the more so the argument from beyond the laws becomes stronger. Therefore the atheist cannot get out of this either way.
Because of this uncertainty, my main argument is from beyond the laws. I was told that in the book this is not sharp enough, but in the article here on the site (written after the book) it is sharper (and also in my articles on YNET):

מבט שיטתי על יחסי אבולוציה ואמונה

Indeed, I got to that article (part of it overlaps with the booklet), and it does sharpen the point quite a bit.
1. Assuming that even within the laws the probability that evolution reaches something complex is small, you wrote that this shows even more the specialness of the laws.
Which laws? I understand that you don’t mean laws in the strict sense, but rather the state of affairs of the universe (chain A was exactly at place x, because if it had been at y then complex life would not have developed, the singular point was exactly this way and not another, random sequences emerged with a survival advantage, etc.).
2. Assuming that within the laws the probability is high (say, 1), what in the laws of nature increases the probability? Directed mutations? After all, it is agreed that they are random.

1. The opposite. If outside the laws the probability is small, that shows the laws are more special (because they cause a special thing to come into being). I am talking about all the laws of nature, from physics through biology to inheritance. The state of affairs of the universe is itself determined by the laws. The fact that some molecule or atom was in a certain place is because of the laws of nature. The fact that they exist at all is because of the laws.
2. As I wrote, all the laws of nature are responsible for this. By the way, even the formation of mutations is not random (the use of probability is like with dice, only a technical use because of the complexity of the calculation. I explained this in the book, and I think also in the article).

It seems to me that I understood only the first point.
1. If within the laws the probability is small, then the laws are even more special because they brought the molecules together at the right time and place. The intention is not to a rigid law (like gravity) but to a state of affairs that directly resulted from the law. Am I right?
2. If within the laws the probability is reasonable (suppose that on every planet life would develop from a protein chain), how did the laws of nature overcome the problem presented in the calculations? Where are the calculations wrong?
It is as if someone claimed that a six-sided die would most likely land דווקא on 6; then the explanation would be that the die has a tendency to fall specifically on that side.
But what can be said in evolution? How would it overcome the statistics? Where did the calculation fail? Seemingly one must arrive at teleological mechanisms that ensure the “correct” results.
I thank you for the length and the help.

Rabbi Michi is just denying it—natural selection weakened faith.
When a religious person gets to a zoo, he marvels and praises his God: how giraffes happen to have a long neck suited to their food, and how a lizard happens to have a skin color suited to its environment, etc.
When an atheist gets to the zoo, he understands that in all these things there is no wonder of adaptation at all; there are endless animals that were not suited and did not survive.
Rabbi, you can’t deny reality.

Almog,
1. No. Laws that do not allow life to form are less special (there are many such laws). And if life occurred within them, then it is a coincidence (the laws did not bring it about, since the laws actually prevent it).
2. According to that interpretation, the laws of nature did not overcome it. The Holy One, blessed be He, intervened and departed from the laws. That is precisely what the creationists argue (and I wrote about the fact that this cannot be ruled out by the findings. The neo-Darwinians are begging the question here—that if it happened, then it is probably reasonable and possible).

Nimrod,
with all due respect, this is utter nonsense.
The religious person who praises God in that way is not relying on my physico-theological argument but on another argument, one that really is flawed. According to your logic, Amnon Yitzhak is evidence against atheism because there are secular people who listen to him and repent. The fact that people are more or less persuaded says nothing at all about the quality of the argument. That has to be examined on its own merits. And on its own merits, natural selection does not weaken the argument. Anyone who disagrees with this simply does not understand what he is talking about.
Besides, you are making a category mistake. In a discussion like this, one cannot deny reality simply because this is not about reality. The question whether some proof is weaker or stronger is a question in logic, not sociology. Therefore, if many people do not understand something and are persuaded by a poor argument, or are not persuaded by a good one, that is a sociological phenomenon, but it says nothing about the quality of the proofs themselves. Most people do not understand relativity or quantum theory either. So does that make them less true than Newtonian mechanics?
In short, this is nonsense.

Rabbi, could you please explain why Almog is mistaken in his analogy? The analogy sounds really brilliant and precise.
I’ll quote it for the Rabbi’s convenience:
“Now a friend gave me a nice analogy:
A drunk walks on a very narrow path one hundred meters long, with a deep abyss on both sides.
The chance that he reaches the finish line is negligible.
Now it turns out that on this particular course the chance is actually reasonable. I get curious to see what causes the chance to rise so drastically, and I see that there is a wall on both sides of the path.
The wall on the right is an ordinary wall, and the wall on the left is there by logical necessity.
Before I came close to the path, I thought the complexity of the process was X, and therefore the probability of an intelligent agent who created the walls was X.
After coming closer, I see that the left wall is there by logical necessity.
Even though the left wall (the logical one) is worthless without the right one, still one cannot ignore its part in the drunk’s success; it has a fifty-percent partnership, and therefore the engineer gets only half the credit (for the right wall), even though without the engineer’s wall the left wall would be worth nothing.
The analogy is clear. Doesn’t the doctor see a difference?”

The Rabbi repeats the claim again and again, but still has not managed to explain why natural selection does not weaken the argument. Almog’s analogy is excellent.
And by the way, you too praise your God for the coordination and design of the human body; after all, in your booklets, besides the argument from complexity, you also bring the argument from the design and adaptation in the human body, regarding its systems. Well then, natural selection shows that there is no design here at all, and the adaptation is only an appearance. So it is time for you to give up the arguments from design and adaptation in biology, because as you said, this is a flawed argument.

Rabbi, please! Just where is his analogy wrong?

I explained it well enough. You just have to read. Please stop these bothersome requests.

Rabbi Michi Abraham’s point is this:
Reality can be described from a physical point of view and from a biological point of view. What is the difference between them? In the type of objects we are discussing. Physical objects above a certain scale (non-quantum) operate according to Newton’s second law or a statistical variation of it—every body persists in its motion until another force acts upon it. The world described is deterministic. Biological objects, especially above a certain level of complexity, operate according to a goal function which, by the rules of evolution, it is convenient for us to define as the survival of genes or the cell into the next generation through replication. The world described in practice is teleological (which strategies serve this goal function). And yet, since these are physical-chemical objects, one can in fact describe this world deterministically as arising from the initial physical conditions created following the Big Bang. Reality in this sense is completely deterministic. Given the initial conditions, you will get human beings at the end. The reason we do not do this is entirely technical. The level of computability required is too great to converge into a clear description of nature. So what do we do in such a situation? We divide nature into layers, where each layer takes the results of the layer beneath it as given and is occupied with explaining its own layer: physics-chemistry-biology-evolutionary psychology-political science and economics-humanities. In this way we manage to describe reality without losing ourselves in the technical details. And one still has to remember: reality is deterministic, and its very determinism is, according to Rabbi Michi’s claim, the physico-ontological proof. The evolutionary teleological aspect is true only for the biological layer, but not for the whole pyramid standing on a physical base.
So why do people make such a big deal out of evolution?
The reason, in my opinion, lies in the proof for God’s existence from the soul. The proof goes like this:
A. Man is a thinking being.
B. Thinking requires a non-empirical dimension (it requires a soul).
C. A soul requires God.
D. God exists. Q.E.D.
A variation of this proof would replace thinking with life, but the proof is still the same proof. The proof is ancient, and its roots are already found in Socrates in Plato’s dialogue Phaedo. The proof is not found in Kant’s list of proofs for the existence of God, and following him neither in Rabbi Michi’s, because it requires a certain metaphysics that was broken in the modern period by Descartes’ cogito, which completely separated matter from consciousness and thereby prevented this kind of philosophy (for this reason too, the concept of “spiritual” hardly appears in Rabbi Michi’s writings except as a purely psychological matter). Nevertheless, most religious people, if not all, belong philosophically to the Middle Ages, and from their point of view the proof is entirely valid, and in fact fairly popular. Evolution provides an answer to this proof either by attacking premise B or premise C (it should be noted that even if reason is a product of evolution, it is not certain that it has no non-empirical interests, but that goes beyond the present discussion). Undermining the premises makes it possible to argue that thinking developed in an empirical evolutionary way without the need to assume the existence of a soul and therefore of God. This is the secular counterclaim to the argument from the soul. Rabbi Michi does not argue on this level. In fact, he agrees with the secular claim (if only for philosophical reasons). But as Rabbi Michi repeatedly emphasizes, his main concern is not evolution but reality itself, which in his view points to an external creator. And with regard to that claim, the discussion about evolution neither adds nor subtracts anything.