Q&A: Regarding the Arachim organization
Regarding the Arachim organization
Question
I wanted to ask what you think about the claims of Neugershal, Inbal, and Serbernik from the Arachim organization regarding Torah and science (evolution, survival of the soul, and the like). Do they distort the facts, or can they be taken at least with some reservations?
Answer
That’s too general a question. If you raise a specific argument, we can discuss it.
Discussion on Answer
When I got a bit into this field before I wrote God Plays Dice, I felt exactly the same way. Everyone, on all sides, lies and distorts shamelessly. It really is hard to believe, sometimes even the facts. Things are presented in a tendentious and selective way. My impression is that the religious side behaves in a more problematic way, but less is expected of it. It is always seen as agenda-driven. It also doesn’t make use of the mantle of scientific expertise (though it does quote people with various mantles). Therefore the bias on the scientific side seems more problematic to me.
Still, my message in the book was that this debate is unnecessary and completely meaningless. If you want to specialize in evolution, then you have to study and enter the field seriously. If you only want to make sure whether there is/isn’t a God, this field is irrelevant to the issue. You can see briefly in my article here:
Therefore there is no point in getting into the collections of tendentious lies spread in this area.
Still, I’ll tell you my impression regarding the questions you asked (although, as stated, they have no importance on the theological-philosophical plane):
1. The first claim is simply silly. By the same token, any causal conclusion we have could be replaced with correlation and temporal sequence. This is empty philosophical hairsplitting. If the laws of nature say that after creature X comes creature Y, then it really doesn’t matter whether X created Y or only came before it. One can of course say that God brings about evolution or the laws that bring it about. That is perfectly fine.
2. This claim is the gaps argument, and it has already been discussed to exhaustion. I haven’t checked the giraffe issue, but usually these claims don’t hold water.
3. Everyone claims the other side is stupid. That’s part of the demagoguery. My impression is that both sides are right (that is, both these and those are fools, at least in the realm of philosophy). The motivations for why someone arrives at a given scientific theory are irrelevant to the discussion. The question is whether it is correct, not what causes the scientist to develop it. This is the well-known philosophical distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification.
https://www.bhol.co.il/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=999597
From personal experience, it’s very hard to argue with Serbernik for the reason mentioned above. He likes to slide very quickly into the personal angle and hint that the other side has hidden motives (lusts and the like). It’s unpleasant to debate with him.
Inbal (the son, Yehoshua) does this less, but he’s an apologist, and extremely sure of himself (because of his broad knowledge). He isn’t willing to open things up and weigh them.
A few years ago, Israel’s defense establishment was on alert ahead of the launch of some important “thing” into space.
It was launched on Sabbath afternoon from some hole in the U.S.
It was launched and… exploded.
In Israel’s defense establishment they had faces like Tisha B’Av.
Apparently it was some very important “thing” that was supposed to provide very important knowledge…
But one man went on the radio all pleased and smug. Really overjoyed.
His whole body was jubilant and exultant.
Rabbi Neugershal was his name.
The interviewer asked (the Haredi one on a Haredi radio station), “What?”
Rabbi Neugershal: “It’s a punishment from God because they launched on the Sabbath.”
The interviewer asked: “But the one sitting on the chair called the Chief Rabbinate approved launching on the Sabbath explicitly” (apparently there was a reason).
Rabbi Neugershal: “True, this time there was approval. But surely it’s a punishment from Heaven for other times when they apparently launched on the Sabbath, apparently without approval…”
So, that’s the level of some of the lecturers there…
I know Rabbi Neugershal very well. It never happened and was never said; he said no such thing. And as someone who knows him far better than the one whose very name testifies about him in the sense of “one who disqualifies does so by his own blemish,” I can say that it doesn’t even fit him.
For example, regarding the theory of evolution, Neugershal claims that all science has discovered is that the simpler creatures came first and then the more complex ones, but from there to say that one developed from the other is just an unfounded theory. He also tried to say that it doesn’t even make sense, because according to that, the giraffe should have died in the middle of its development. Serbernik went even further and said that the scientists did all this in order to get rid of God, and so they invented a theory that is obviously implausible. But when I go to Dawkins and Hitchens I see exactly the opposite: that every creationist is an idiot who wants to cling to something that has already been refuted, etc. etc. etc. The question is how much one can rely on both sides. To my shame I’m not a biologist, and when I look at both of them it seems like something here smells very fishy, with each side trying to hide information and present things in its favor.